@John O'Keeffe good to hear you work in the city, that means no excuses for missing next event!

The most well-intended and capable end-buyer does not want to be out several grand in the event the house burns down before she or he can close on it themselves or there is some huge title cloud.Whatever you want to make on the deal is your spread between what you get the seller to agree to and what you get the end buyer to accept.   

Keep your credit cards in your wallet and leave that at home when you to go to events.

You can check out the forum "Events & Happenings" too, that's where most of that gets posted.

@Lisa Thoele  Its a fine line in the ultra competitive   west coast markets.When I speak at RIAs and other events in LA.. the first thing I ask is a show of hands from the audience who is a RE agent.. virtually every hand is raised.. then I ask Who is a Private lender and again nearly all the audience raises their hands.Its not quite that way here in Oregon.. but its still a very vibrant RE market..

There are local events too, I think @Justin Silverio has one coming up soon, so he'll now jump in and tell you about it, maybe I'll see you there.

The best thing that you can do is attend any local networking events.

Both areas have a strong history and other than some catastrophic event there is nothing in the foreseeable future that would change that.You also seem to be wary of Vegas long term. 

@Ana Nomys   Would not want to be an apartment owner or buy and hold investor in that area right now.You could have a mini GFC event with rents imploding

You can meet some of them by attending local events.