Creating a Great Real Estate Investment Club
By Steve Gillman - 2007
What makes a great real estate investment club? Meetings and
events that help its members find great investments and develop
their knowledge. A good club helps bring people together in profitable
partnerships and can be a place to find alternative sources of
financing. Use the following tips to make your club into one
that really works.
Invite Members Who Will Contribute
You don't need to keep anyone from joining your organization.
On the other hand you don't want nothing but beginning investors
in your club. An investment club needs some experienced investors.
Contact them directly if necessary, and invite them to join.
Real estate agents can tell you who is actively investing in
the area and send them an invitation or pass on your phone number.
Experienced investors understand the value of these organizations
and many will join as soon as they hear about your club. You
might also offer a free membership for the first year to entice
them. Your many new investors will often find properties that
they can't afford or are afraid to invest in, and experienced
investors can take over. Explain that to them to get them to
join.
Activities That Work
Create an "I have/I need" session for each meeting.
Every member who wishes to announces what they have or what they
need at the moment. At a meeting of our real estate investment
club in Tucson a few years ago, a member mentioned that he had
good cupboards he had removed from a house. Another member bought
them, saving perhaps a couple thousand dollars versus buying
new cupboards for his fixer upper project.
A man mentioned during another meeting that he had a great
house to flip but didn't have the money to do it, so he wanted
to sell the contract to someone. He negotiated to sell it to
another investor, making a few thousand for having found the
deal. The other investor hopefully made at least $20,000 fixing
and flipping the property in the end, so both did well.
It helps to write down these "haves" and "needs"
on an overhead projector along with the person's name and phone
number. At our meetings members took notes constantly. There
were regularly investors on the the "I need" side who
were looking for financial help with investments. That provided
great opportunities for those who had more money than time to
invest, or those who needed to see how an experienced investor
made the deals work before investing on their own.
Monthly meetings seem to be a good schedule for a real estate
investment club. If you can arrange for guest speakers and special
presentations occasionally they'll be more interesting. Just
be sure to always have time for members to mingle with each other,
since this is one of the primary values. Make time for the "I
have/I need" session as well. Try to keep membership dues
reasonable, generally just enough to cover the rental of the
space, minor advertising, and maybe coffee and cookies.
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