Real Estate Investment Clubs: How To Get Started

Over the last two weeks, we have discussed how being a part of a real estate investment club, or group, can result in exceptional investment opportunities that are not available to individuals.

Now, let’s look at the typical path for a real estate investor who is interested in investing outside their local area. Once they learn the approach, now they fire up their Google search engine. Hmmmm, let me see, let’s type in Preconstruction. When I did that, I just got 899,000 (literally) web pages that matched that search term. Now, they go through the top 30 or so and learn about all the reasons why you should consider this project, or that location, or be a part of.

I remember facing that scenario about 3 years ago. What I started to notice was that there was a select few groups that got really good projects and the other 98% of the web sites got leftovers. Since I was only interested in finding projects (I had no idea that we would create something like GetPreconstructionDeals.com at that time), I wanted to know why. The answer was very simple.. These real estate investment clubs had substantial buying power so they were getting good deals. So I joined their lists.

Even as part of those lists however, I became frustrated. Why? Largely because I couldn’t get the kind of information that I was looking for to make the investment decision. Long story a little shorter, the realization that real estate investment club buying power was very important, and the frustration of not being able to get enough info led to the creation of www.GetPreconstructionDeals.com.

But now that we are on the other side of the fence, with over 15,000 registered investors, we understand soooooooooo much more about what it takes to be apart of a group and get access to truly good projects. Regardless if you work with us or you work with others, let me give you some specific steps you can take to improve your odds:

Find a major group where you line up with their philosophy and then join their mailing list.

Determine, in advance, what types of projects you are looking for and can afford. That way, you know your own criterion.

VERY IMPORTANT STEP: Find other like minded people either that are already part of the big group or are from your circle of influence. What you just did was now created a mini real estate investor club within a much larger group. If you are excited about it, go get your friends excited as well.

Let the major group know that your real estate investment club exists, that you have X like minded people, and are looking for (fill in the blank)_________________________.

Just so you understand why steps 3 &4 are so important, consider our latest project in Tampa. This project has been hugely popular but we had no idea, in advance, if it would be popular or just interest a few. Now, all of a sudden, we have over 200 people expressing interest and wanting calls.. Yikes!

With a tight deadline imposed by the developer, where do we start? We know from experience that many of these 200 will not be serious which is fine. First, we start with our Mastermind Members because we know that they are seriously interested in getting projects.

Next, we then go to members who we KNOW are serious and make sure they get everything they need. Then next, we start with the others in the order they were received.

In contrast, suppose there was a group of 5 like minded individuals that we KNEW were serious about condo conversions in Florida with rent Guarantees. In all likelihood, BEFORE we even agreed to put this project on our web site, we would have been in contact with that real estate investment club asking "what do you think"

Now, suppose that same group then recruited a few more buddies and got up to 20 members in their real estate investment club, all looking for roughly the same thing. Next, they then communicated their interest to us. Of course, that real estate investment club would play a big role in future projects meeting their needs but that is only a small part. Instead, we could then start LOOKING for that project, putting out feelers around the community, etc. Basically, this turns the process around and we now ASK developers for specific projects.

We also understand that in a web community like ours, it is not necessarily easy for you to get access to like minded people. On March 1, on an experimental basis, we are going to try introducing something that we believe will help. We will introduce an investor forum where everybody will be able to interact and hopefully establish some powerful, mini, real estate investment clubs. In addition, there will be several other features of the forum that we believe will spark lots of interest.

We hope that this forum will provide a real estate investment club atmosphere where you can not only work with others but where you can also tell your friends to come visit and participate. In the way that we think and operate, having more, focused investors around does not increase competition but rather substantially increases the ability to get access to very good projects.

Copyright 2006 Chris Anderson