I am wondering if anyone knows of any good REI masterminds or meetups in the southeast Phoenix towns of Chandler or Gilbert.

I believe it confirms what you're saying.The areas to the Southeast (Florence, Casa Grande) got hit very hard (-60%).

I am about to purchase my first and/or second STR property in the Southeast.

I'm in southeast FL, and in my area a starter home might run about $600K. 

I buy and sell a lot of rentals in the Philly, Delco, Montco areas of southeast PA.

@Jay Hinrichs, the southeast/sunbelt markets from peak to few deals that are trading.  

B Areas, better tenants:     These areas are:Bartlett (38134, 38133)Cordova (38018, 38016)East Memphis (38117)South East Memphis (38125)A little bit of a lower class area would be: 38122, 38111, 38116, 38141, 38115 

In fact, for both of those, I work with several investors who even live in those markets, and are investing here in Chattanooga instead.I think you're right to focus in the southeast, I'd just move to smaller cities where there's still more opportunity!

So we became out-of-state investors- targeting markets in the midwest, southwest, and southeast that were relatively large but even more important had many submarkets.

These tend to be in the Midwest and Southeast.