As far as meetups go, you can find a lot of local events posted here on BiggerPockets: https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/521-real-estate-events-...I also have a list of Chicago meetups that I can share with you as well.

Welcome to the community and be ready for a huge amount of information at your finger tips.

I am wanting to purchase a condo in the St Pete Beach (preferable Treasure Island) market post hurricane(s).

Why not use the existing HELOC (mentioned in his 2nd post) to use as the 20% down on property #2? 

The brokerage should be very glad to have you onboard.I'm looking forward to your future posts as you share your success. 

Something about acting on unconfirmed information really doesn't sit well with me.

This is another reason why I see 1M posts on hear about people wanting to transfer properties to their LLC because some guru they paid $5k told them too.

@Donald Hatter We send the information to a collection agency who attempts to recover the money; after they make several attempts they place it on their credit report. 

Thanks for the information

Let's re-visit this post next year and see.