Real Estate Investment Clubs

By Steve Gillman - 2006

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.

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