It's interesting to me that everyone is stressing traditional education so much for real estate - When I think of education, I don't only think of it through a formal means (university), but as investing a supple amount of time into learning your trade / vocation.
The best advice I ever got from one of the richest men I ever knew (sold his company for well over 200 million), was, "Get an education. It doesn't have to be college, but get an education in SOMETHING. If you know what you love to do, learn everything you can about it, then move forward." I was around the age of 18 and that always stuck with me.
I ended up going the traditional university route resulting in two degrees, because I didn't know what it was I wanted out of life and it was stressed to me (similar to what I'm reading) it was necessary to be successful, regardless of what path I wanted to take - These two degrees haven't done much of anything for me in my field.
If you want a common job or one that requires a certain level of education (Doctor, Lawyer, Nurse, etc...), it's important. Most corporate companies want to see that benchmark. But if you want to be rich and be in real estate? It surprises me that everyone says traditional education is your key to the end of the rainbow.
You're either a bright, intelligent, sales oriented type, or you're not. You can't instill those traits, they're innate. But if you have the fundamentals down, then learn everything there is to learn about the markets, techniques, your clientele, the demographic, trends in certain neighborhoods, the legal side, etc. Start low at a brokerage and build a brand for yourself. Once you have a reputation, then form your own brokerage.
If you have some ingenious business plan that I missed in this post somewhere, then start inquiring on small business loans. There's even a site I invest on that offers loans to people in these situations. They're out there, but just having a desire to be rich won't be much of a qualifier.
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