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Houses Under Fifty
Thousand |
Real Estate Investment Clubs
The first thing that your local
real estate investment clubs or associations do for you is educate
you. This won't be book education, but real knowledge about your
local real estate market. These people are investors, many who
have gotten wealthy investing right in your town. You'll get
meaningful and specific advice on what is working in your area,
where to go for an inspector or property manager, and many other
tips and based on real experience.
Then there are the actual money-making
opportunities that you'll have. There are people there who need
a partner with money, or a partner with time to find deals. There
are investors who have properties for sale and want to save the
sales commission by selling to one of the members. Also, if you
have a business that is in any way related to real estate, you
can make valuable contacts here. A handyman or landscaper can
often find business at our local real estate investment club
meetings.
Real Estate Investment
Clubs - An Example
I'll tell you about the local
association that my wife and I belong to as an example. It is
AZREIA, or "The Arizona Real Estate Investors Association."
Even if you don't have a similar organization in your town, this
may give you some ideas for what to include if you start one.
The association sponsors a wide
variety of educational events and seminars for reasonable fees,
but the regular meetings are once each month. It cost about $200
per year for the two of us to join. As I write this, I am looking
forward to tomorrow night's meeting, which will include "The
Apprentice" TV show winner Kendra Todd, telling us how she
made her first million in real estate.
The speakers are great, but the
part that I like best about the meetings is the regular events.
Every meeting has the Pre-meeting "Open Networking,"
for thirty minutes or so. This is an opportunity to meet people,
learn a little, and take down names and numbers. Each of us has
a name tag that also tells everyone what our primary interests
are, ranging from rental properties to fixer-uppers to wholesaling.
The meeting officially starts
with the "Structured Networking." This involves filling
out a 3 x 5 card with your name, occupation, experience in real
estate, and what investments you are interested in. Turns are
taken trading this information with randomly chosen others. It
is amazing how often profitable connections are made during this
process.
My absolute favorite part of
the meeting is the "I have / I want" part. Anyone can
stand up and announce what they have and what they want, and
the host writes their phone number on the overhead projector.
Sometimes it is something
as mundane as a microwave an investor needs to get rid of, that
someone doing a fixer-upper might need. When I once announced
that I was looking for a mobile home park to buy, I received
three calls within a week.
These are not formal affairs.
Millionaires in the room are as likely to have jeans on as a
suit. Everyone is there with a common purpose - to make money
investing in real estate. Even if you have no money to invest,
go find a great deal. If the numbers truly work, you can probably
find the money at these meetings. There is just one more great
thing about real estate investment clubs.
Houses Under
Fifty Thousand | Real Estate Investment Clubs |