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.

Click here to check out REFM.