Newbie Trying to Decide Which Real Estate Investment Club to Join

[Kevin Zolea]

Hi BiggerPockets Community,

My name is Kevin and I'm a newbie to real estate investing.I'm new to biggerpockets and just want to introduce myself! I have always had a passion for real estate investing and wanted to jump in but never actually took the action to get started. I just graduated from college and received a full time job and I realized that it's not the path that I would like for the rest of my life. This has given me the motivation and drive to pursue my real estate investing career and obtain the necessary knowledge to become successful in this business. 

I would like to join a real estate investing club in NJ(I live in central NJ) and I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions or advice as to which club to join. The two I was thinking of joining is the Metropolitan Real Estate & Investors Association and South Jersey Real Estate Investors Association. I would greatly appreciate it if anyone could give me some feedback! 

Thanks,

Kevin

[Cortney Jones]

@Kevin Zolea, agree with @Brie Schmidt that you should test them out first to see which one you like the best. Also, why not join both? Chances are they are on different days and will attract different people. The WHOLE reason to attend REIA groups is for the networking. Know going in that most of them are just pitchfests. They will parade new speakers in each month who will tell you just enough to get you excited and then sell you into a 3 day to teach you what to do, but not how to do it. For that, you have to buy the $25k mentoring program. :-)

You can learn what you need to know by listening, reading free books from library, if you're cash strapped.  If you want to hire a mentor to speed things up and learn from someone else's experience and the investments they've made, that will get your there faster.

Also, check meetup.com for meetings in your area.  A lot of areas have great real estate investing clubs that are not advertised through the major REIA groups. 

Good luck and welcome to investing!