One of the things I did when I was in graduate school studying real estate and early on in my career was take a bunch of ARGUS and Excel modeling classes. Some of them I took through the University of Pennsylvania. Some of them I took through work. And some of them I just took on my own.
Regardless, I always found them incredibly helpful. Because at the end of the day, you’re not just learning the software; you’re also learning the real estate business. You can’t build a financial model if you don’t understand the business. And I mean really understand it.
So if you’re looking to get into real estate development or you just want to brush up on your skills, I would encourage you to consider taking a financial modeling course. I plan to do a refresher later this year.
The last one I completed was through a company called REFM (Real Estate Financial Modeling). The founder is a Penn (Wharton) alum – so it must be good, right? 😉 There are a lot of self-study options if you just want to take them online from home and all of them include prebuilt Excel models that you can then use (and customize) going forward.