Went to first REIA meeting

[Whitney Moore]

So i went to my first REIA meeting on Saturday and honestly I still am a little confused..Let me give a rundown of how the day started...

I go in register and get my name tag.. And because there was not enough seats I missed the briefing for new members interested in joining.. I was able to see checks on the walls with various members who made money on different wholesale jobs so i figured they were going over how this to can become you.. Then we are all lead into a bigger room and we then get a presentation on how in 21 days we could also make from 5,000 and above on various transactions.. The ppt was about 1 hour long and towards the end there were various products with VALUED prices.. The last slide then calculated all the Value prices and it came up to around 9000.. Of course everyone was looking around like NO WAY!! lol so then they slashed the price and people still were kind of uneasy.. So then the presenter says well do you want to know how you can get it for free.. They then ask you to join the REIA and there are two prices one around 170 the other around 200 both per month...( I dont know what the typical REIA membership fee is monthly) So I saw people signing up and getting the started kit but there are other courses that you can get but you would also have to pay for... I then went over to see the application and I saw that it required that you have to have 2 cards on file (again i dont know if that is typical practice)

I guess my question to the BP community is this how most REIA operate? I left a little confused and wandered maybe this what happens.. Also they offered to show you how to market on Craiglist, facebook, use listingbook, and give you access to dealer analyzer software... I thought a lot of these things were offered for free online but I could be wrong.. I dont want to say this was a bad place but I will go attend others in my area to see how it goes...

Any thoughts?

[Susan Gillespie]

@Whitney Moore that sounds like a sales vs educational event.

I've been a member of my local REIA for the last year. I go for networking and have made some good contacts. There's an annual fee of $179. Presentation topics vary, but if I don't learn something at the monthly meetings, I leave early. I get frustrated with heavy sales pitches, and unfortunately that's the format sometimes.

If you're looking for education, you could check out meetups in your area or other REIAs. They can be good opportunities to meet others and get an overview of different investing topics. Keep up your networking and you'll meet knowledgeable people.

You wrote: I thought a lot of these things were offered for free online but I could be wrong...

Many memberships, classes and tools aren't free, but the good ones have reasonable prices. Watch out for heavy upsell, like the meeting you went to.