I go to the Atlanta REIA meetings often. Last Monday was their main meeting. They had a guru there talking about buying notes. Sure, the 1 hour talk was a mostly a sales pitch how buying notes is the best thing ever, and she did have a one day course, a book/cd course, and an 4 day retreat/conference also available. But, while there I ran into my next door neighbor who has a 22 unit rental portfolio who lost his day job back in January, and joined the Property Protege Group (a group coaching program to learn about flipping properties), and now has 4 active flips going on. We talked about possibly partnering on a future deal.
Last night, I went to one of their sub group meetings (south & multi-family investing group), and there is a long time investor talking about different deal structures. Very basic high level stuff. There was a meeting fee, but it included a catered dinner that was very good. And near the end, a state congressman had heard about the meeting, and decided to check it out. Afterwards he asked our opinion on how investor loans played a part of the 2008 financial collapse, and what are the risks of another collapse. So, there was a lively discussion afterwards.
I have taken a 2 day "Wealthy Code" course that was advertised last year at another Atlanta REIA meeting. Sure, that 2 day was a low cost course, and there was a pitch for even more training. But at lunch during the course, I talked to another person there that invested in hotels, so we had a interesting discussion on that, and how she took another guru's $10K hotel investing course, and if she thought it was worth it or not.
So, is it a good place to meet people and learn from, absolutely! But, it is usually not the people in the front of the room that you are learning from, but from the people in the audience.
