I recently attended my first local real estate investors meetup here in Knoxville, TN with KnowREIA. (My excitement must have been palpable because my wife, who is 7 months pregnant, let me go even though it was on Valentine's day.) I wanted to give my thoughts about the meeting in hopes to help other local investors with their decision on whether or not joining this group would be beneficial. 

@Victor Jernigan is the founder/ facilitator of the group. He is an intelligent, experienced real estate investor and his passion as an educator is evident from the start. As his profile states, his number one goal is to help people to "think" as an investor. My favorite part of the meeting was when he explained how (using the investor part of his brain) he took a recent national news story and broke down his thought process on how to capitalize on the opportunity. He provided and explained all the material that he researched and how to take the next actionable steps.

The next part of the meeting was a Q&A discussion about renovating a flip with 3 local investors/ contractors that do multiple projects a year. All 3 were very knowledgeable and I left with copious amount of notes that I can use going forward with flips or buy and hold projects.  

I left the meeting with 5 contacts from beginner to seasonal investors. If you are a new and inspiring REI, I feel KnoxREIA is a great source to begin a solid foundation. 

BTW I am in no way compensated for this post. I just hoped to answer the same questions for other people that I had not long ago. Hope to see you at the next meeting.