I joined late last year on here.

Join a REIC, present them to the members in the group.  

All brokers will charge you fees (desk fees, admin fees, IT fees, royalty fees - that's if you DON'T have office space) and require that you join their preferred Realtor association, which also comes with fees, plus the CE classes, plus lockbox access fees, plus MLS fees.

Through BP I've also joined up with Justin for an apprenticeship with his company. 

My goal of joining this site is to learn more about investing in real estate.

LoopNet has comps and you could join the MLS.

(most likely the case)The man had his wife join him in title.  

I always recommend that Baton Rouge area investors join "The RING" (Real Estate Investors Network Group) found on meetup.com to get to know lots of active investors in the BR market and learn a little bit in the process. 

Come join us and network.

All good points @Stephen Barton .Don't forget in addition to paying for the Broker class [about $400] one will need to join MIBOR & the National Board of Realtors - not to mention E&O insurance and centralized showing fees.