Real Estate Investment Clubs: How To Get Started
Copyright 2006 Chris Anderson
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.