Build A Great Real Estate Investment Club

                                                                                         

A good real estate investment club helps its members find investment opportunities. It also helps bring people together in profitable partnerships. It can be a place to find alternative sources of financing as well. Here are some tips for making your club work like it should.

Get The Right Members

There is no need to keep anyone from joining your organization, but you don't want it to be nothing but beginning investors who haven't yet bought a single thing. To be a valuable tool, an investment club need experienced investors too. To get them to join you may have to contact them directly. Talk to real estate agents to see who is actively investing in the area and sent them an invitation or call them on the phone.

First, let them know the club exists. Many investors understand the value of these organizations and will join as soon as they hear about them. Otherwise you might offer free membership for the first year, just to get them to join. Explain that even though you have many new investors, these "newbies" can find properties that they can't afford or are afraid to invest in, and experienced investors can take advantage of these.

Have The Right Activities

If you don't already have an "I have/I need" routine, start one. This is a time when every member announces what they have or what they need. For example, 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 he was upgrading. He made a little selling them to another member, and that investor saved perhaps a couple thousand dollars versus buying new cupboards for his fixer upper rental.

At another meeting a man mentioned that they had a great house to flip but didn't have the money to do the deal. He wanted to sell the contract. I later overheard him negotiating the sale with another investor. He would make a few thousand for having found the deal, and the other investor hopefully made at least $20,000 fixing and flipping the property.

These "haves" and "needs" were written down on an overhead projector along with the person's name and phone number. Members took notes religiously. On the "I need" side there were regularly investors who needed financial help with investments, providing great opportunities for those who had more money than time to invest.

Once per month seems to be a good schedule for meetings for a real estate investment club. Guest speakers and special presentations are a great way to make them more interesting, but always leave room for members to mingle with each other (this is one of the primary values), and for the "I have/I need" session. Membership dues should be reasonable, generally just enough to cover the rental of the space, minor advertising, perhaps coffee and cookies or some other snack.

About the author:
Copyright Steve Gillman. To see a photo of the house we bought for $17,500, and to get a free Real Estate Investing Course, visit: http://www.HousesUnderFiftyThousand.com

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