The school district continues to receive numerous accolades and top honors, which has certainly helped spur much of the growth. 

After spending countless hours answering numerous questions and being on hold with numerous insurance companies and brokers, I have had two refuse me at the last minute just as I was about to sign up.

I know that they aren't helpful as a metric-- trying to regress a complex situation down to a numeric score usually isn't helpful-- but in what ways specifically do they fall short?

Like @Brandon Turner has mentioned numerous times in podcasts /webinars, start analyzing to see whats out there.

I attended that Westside meetup because Jin was kind enough to invite me to it.

If you cannot find any groups locally, then you have a couple of options:1) Find a virtual group where you can network with like-mined investors2) Start your own local group by invitation only and invite people that you believe would complement each other skills setIf you have any other questions, feel free to PM me.

This was my first year investing in real estate and I purchased two properties (a duplex and a single- family that I house-hack) read numerous books, listened to dozens of podcasts, and met a number of successful investors through real estate meet-ups.

I wouldn't want to invite a situation where the tenant thinks "it's OK if I'm short on the rent this month because I can just do some work to make up for it." 

I started my real estate learning about 2 months ago and though I'm about a year from buying my first deal at this point I have talked to mentors, read numerous forum posts, and books and have made a more concrete plan.

Get involved and invite five friends to join both groups with you!