The most powerful aspect of real estate clubs is the networking. But like all networking opportunities, caution and understanding is advised. Many experienced real estate investors will not be interested in networking with a beginner because they are busy with their already successful network group. They may be interested if you can show them a reason they should network with you. But just going up and saying “Hey I’m new. Can I bend your ear for a while?” is probably not a good approach to take with them. Getting the experienced folks to be part of your network is a challenge but really your best investment of time as it is they who can offer the most in terms of your education.

You can also network with people who are at a similar experience level as you. This type of networking is easy as you are all at the same level and there is the camaraderie of working together to solve equally challenging situations and issues.

There is a third group that would be delighted to network with you. These are the folks who want something from you. And it is here that you must exercise caution. There are any number of folks at these groups who will happily use you to further their own goals. It doesn’t mean that they are doing it with malicious intent but they may be doing it without your best interests in mind.

For instance, if you are a beginner you may run into someone who wants to dump a fixer upper house he just acquired – you know someone just wanting to do a flip. His goal is to unload the house. He sees you as someone who might buy it so he will make the pitch to you. He may not care if the deal is a good deal for you as he may think it is 100% your responsibility to figure that out yourself.

The deal may indeed be a good deal but only for someone who knows how to maneuver with that particular set of circumstances. For someone not adept at the particular situation, it could become a losing proposition. And that will of course create feelings if disgust and betrayal by the newbie buyer.

The best of this group of people will point out the challenges and be sure the potential buyer fully understands the situation and the risk. But some folks are just out to make deals just want to move the property and go on to the next deal. And they don’t care how many bodies get left behind.

This is a stupid short sighted view as burning people reduces your available pool of buyers over time. But there are people like this at the real estate club meetings. And they are happy to network with you and try to give you their latest great deal.

So by all means network with everyone you can but do it with eyes open. If a deal is so hot that you as a beginner don’t have time to do your due diligence, it is better to skip the deal and wait for one that you can feel pretty comfortable with.

The other main aspect of the real estate investor meetings is the talks that are given. These talks are portrayed as education and in many cases they do offer good information. But many of them are also conducted with the purpose of selling something. It could be an investing course, software, financial packages or anything else related to real estate.

So if you hear a talk moving from fact to something that gets your juices flowing be prepared for some sort of sales pitch at the end of the talk.

And there is nothing wrong with a sales pitch. It is how you learn about products and services that are out there. Just be aware that anyone who gives a talk and pitches a back of the room sale is presenting details in a way designed to get you to the back of the room and buy their real estate course or finance service, etc.

When you know it is a sales pitch, you can listen with a more critical ear, look at the examples with a more critical eye and ask yourself what details were glossed over to make a situation look easier than it really was.

That way if you do decide to make in investment in the sales offering, you are doing it from a rational analysis rather than from an emotional knee jerk decision to grab it at the special price being offered for that night only.

As you can see, there are pros and cons of attending and networking at real estate investment clubs but but good far outweighs the bad. Just go into the meetings with your eyes and ears open and tread with caution until you get to know the folks.

Listings of local clubs:

• http://reiclub.com/real-estate-clubs.php
• http://creonline.com/real-estate-clubs/

There is a great source where you can get almost any recent real estate investing book at 50% or more off the retail price.

That place is amazon.com.

Every time you do a search, Amazon gives you the choice to buy the books that show up from them at their catalog price (which can be quite a discount from retail) or buy from a reseller. Here is an example to show you:

As a beginning real estate investor, you are pumped – primed for your first deal. And that can be a two edged sword. If you jump too soon, you could get stuck with a deal that sours you on the idea of real estate investing as a way to wealth. And if you are too slow, you can find that good deals were grabbed by competitors while you were thinking about them.

So what do you do? How do you know what deal is going to work out for you?

While there is no way to be 100% sure of any deal, knowledge will help you avoid many of the pitfalls of the typical novice investor. That knowledge can be acquired in many ways:

• Join your local real estate club and network with members
• Meet professionals (realtors, title companies, insurance agents, etc.) and ask them questions about the local market and trends that they are seeing. For an example, just imagine how much you could learn about potential trouble spots if you could tag along with a good home inspector for a day. And if you have to pay for the education, it will be money well spent. Or take some time to talk with a creative mortgage broker to learn what types of financing exist out there and what types of financing packages work for what types of deals.
• Invest in quality courses created by successful people in the field and study them. Learn where they can apply and how the knowledge can be used in your local market.
• Get out and look at a large number of the type of properties you want to buy. Run the numbers on each one for a variety of scenarios that could work for that type of property. Do this without the intent of finding a deal to buy. Just approach it as homework you need to do to get your degree. After you look at enough properties, you will start being able to work the numbers in your head and evaluate the potential of a deal while you are examining the property.

All this pre-investing work may sound hard or even a waste of time, but consider this…

People go to college for four years and in many cases invest 10’s of thousands of dollars for their education. At the end of all this hard work, they graduate and get an entry level job for 30-50K/yr working 40 hours a week or more. All these people understand that you must invest in your education first before getting that job in their chosen career.

And real estate is no different. There is much to learn to become a successful investor. Fortunately for you, it can be done in a much shorter time period, for a lot less money and is a lot more fun – expecially when you get that first check from a successfully concluded deal.