Hard work and determination are what kept Jason Hartman going as he left college and started a career in real-estate investing. But it took more than those two qualities, which have launched many successful careers in other fields, to make him a multi-millionaire investor while he was only in his 20s.

What can you do to follow a career path like Jason’s, one that created the Platinum Properties Investment Network, and one that will lead you to many years of success while you’re still young in mind and heart? We suggest that you follow “Jason Hartman’s 4 Most Important Things Needed to Properly Build Wealth and Income With Real Estate,” which we’re gladly providing you here, via the Accredited Income Property Investment Specialist (AIPIS) channel:

1) Get a Steady Job and Then Extra Work to Start Building Your Wealth

Through another channel that Jason Hartman and the Platinum Properties Investor Network provides, Young Wealth and its related podcasts, youthful entrepreneurs are taught a valuable lesson early on: Wall Street is a scam that they should avoid. Make no mistake, Jason Hartman says, the stock market is a bad deal for the average investor. He also deplores “the gold-bug crowd” who profess investments in gold and other commodities as a way to pad their Wall Street portfolios.

This is a lesson that Jason learned early on — actually while he was still in college at the age of 19 and starting with very little. While brokering properties for clients, he invested in his own portfolio along the way. Through creativity, persistence and hard work, he soon joined the ranks of the top 1 percent of Realtors in the United States, and in quick succession, he earned a number of prestigious industry awards, developed the Platinum Properties Investors Network and became a young multi-millionaire.

Here’s the first most important way to follow in Jason’s footsteps then: You need money, and to do that, you need a regular job, preferably in real estate but anything that provides steady income. Then you need an extra job so you can invest income from that extra work in real estate.

Rest assured that you’ve now started building your wealth and will continue to do so for many years to come — via the highest quality investment asset on earth, which is income property.

2) Research and Educate Yourself About Real Estate

Sometimes it’s hard to step outside of our own skins and analyze, from an impartial point of view, what we’re doing wrong and what we’re doing right. With that in mind, we are asking you to take your time not only on this website, but the podcasts and blogs that are offered by Jason Hartman and the Platinum Property investments network via their other websites, including “Young Wealth” and “Creating Wealth” podcasts and blogs.

Through these podcasts and other Jason Hartman resources, you’ll learn how to make, spend and invest money for an awesome life ahead with property-income investments. Younger investors get real-life stuff they didn’t learn in their regular school curriculum. “Young Wealth” podcasts give them innovative new ways to deal with their finances, plus the skills and tools they’ll need to survive and be successful once they’re “out there” and on their own. As the introduction to the podcasts says: “Let the ‘Young Wealth’ show be your GPS to take you from ‘clueless’ to ‘clued in.’”

And then there are these courses and other resources that Jason Hartman and Platinum Property investors offer at Jason’s main website, developed with both younger and older investors in mind.

These materials aren’t something that you should skim over: The information you’ll find through the Platinum Properties Investor Network could be critical to the advancement of your career. To put it simply, you need education about real estate and as much of it as you can get, and the Platinum Properties investment network is a great way to start.

3) Get a Real Estate, Mortgage or Finance License

There’s no better way to get an education, of course, than to become a licensed real estate agent or mortgage or finance professional. Jason Hartman and the Platinum Properties investments network strongly suggest that you become a real estate agent, but careers as mortgage and finance agents will put you in prime position to embark on a future of income-property investing as well.

The requirements to become a real estate agent vary from state to state, but generally, you need to be at least 18 years of age and spend a few hundred dollars to get a minimally required amount of classroom and online instruction hours, then take and pass your state exam. The number of credit hours required also varies from state to state: In Georgia, for example, 75 credit hours of classroom/online instruction are required before you can take the state exam, but in California, 135 credit hours of classroom/online instruction are required.

Obviously, part of your required research and early education is to Google “real estate license requirements for (my state),” or searching for requirements for mortgage or finance agents, and immediately start working hard toward that licensing goal.

4) Now It’s Time to Become an Accredited Income Property Investment Specialist (AIPIS) and a Member of Jason Hartman Platinum Properties Investors Network

You’ve found a steady job and have worked hard for extra income to invest, and then you educated yourself about real estate and got licensed by your state. Now it’s time to take that important fourth step: Becoming an Accredited Income Property Investment Specialist (AIPIS) and a member of Jason Hartman’s Platinum Properties Investors Network.

Once he became an internationally known, investment-property guru at an early age, Jason Hartman had a vision. He wanted to share his 25-plus years of real-estate experience with a wider audience, so that they could benefit from everything he had learned.

The idea for the Accredited Income Property Investment Specialist (AIPIS) program grew out of Jason’s desire to help Realtors, mortgage officers and financial advisers earn income through assisting their clients in building successful, income-property portfolios. He also wanted to assist these same professionals with a means to earn the necessary credits to renew their required licenses. The best way to accomplish all of these goals, Jason Hartman decided, was to offer online courses. Thus, AIPIS was born.

Jason Hartman and the Platinum Properties Investor Network will instill in you how income property is real estate purchased with the purpose of generating income through rentals or tenants. It could be either a residential or commercial property. During the AIPIS course, you’ll learn that income property is a set of Packaged Commodities™, a term that’s explained thoroughly in the lessons. For now, just keep in mind it could be a building, an apartment complex, a single-family residence or in some other form. The bottom line is that it’s an improvement to a piece of land and, as such, uniquely multi-dimensional, unlike any other investment class. Don’t worry. This all will be thoroughly discussed in the AIPIS training.

The AIPIS program is comprised of three courses that real-estate professionals successfully complete to earn their accreditation. Here’s a thumbnail sketch of each:

— AIPIS 100. Learn to develop a strong relationship with potential clients and understand all the investment options that are available. The better you know your client the more able you will be to identify the appropriate investment properties, taking into account the client’s financial portfolio and goals.

— AIPIS 200. Proper investment philosophy and income property investment strategies. This is where you learn to identify prudent property investments.

— AIPIS 300. Take the tools and skills from the first two courses and integrate them in an AIPIS realtor’s business. Develop and expand your clientele through an effective marketing plan based on the philosophies and strategies of the program.

Each AIPIS course consists of online chats, graded assignments, unit quizzes, a discussion forum and income-property investing textbooks. A sampling of topics that are covered in the AIPIS program include: The differences between saving and investing; the importance of asset allocation and diversification; the relationship between risk and return; and, the value of prudent long-term investing.

You’ve got to earn potential clients’ confidence, especially in our current economic climate. The fear left by the credit crisis could linger for a long time to come. It’s with this backdrop that today’s investors are searching for financial advice and investment options, such as income property, that will generate the confidence that they crave.

And they’ll confidently look up to you — once you become certified as a specialist through AIPIS, Jason Hartman and the Platinum Properties Investor Network.