In addition to meetups, Atlanta is constantly having conferences that run the spectrum of retail, SFH, multifamily, office, etc that provide great opportunities as well. 

He would at times conference call with other individuals on his team to increase his validity.  

And the truth be told, he can afford to do that at this point simply because his primary source of capital is from his $10k a ticket "hype-you-up" conferences, book sales, and his sales training programs.

I attended a VRM Intel conference recently and someone pointed out that everyone in our area calls this thing 'nightly rental.'

Ones that will make the most sense for you is the Eastern Mass REIA in Rockland (2nd meeting in Taunton) and the House Flipping School meetup in Plymouth.  

I am an Eastern IL University alumni and I visit frequently enough since I still have family and friends in the area.

I'd hope that in most markets, there are some landlord rep firms that are very active in networking, e.g. go to (and hit hard at) all the local and national ICSC conferences, other associations, etc.. 

The Ramada Tampa Westshore Inn  and Conference Center1200 North Westshore Blvd., Tampa,  FL 33607

They just had a 'State of the Market' conference last month and shared some very interesting information on growth. 

Thanks to @Mark Robinson at Watson Realty we are going to have the Sept 8th meetup in the conference room at the Watson Realty office at 4516 NW 23RD Ave Gainesville, FL 32606.We'll have a panel of people including me as someone who just put there first property up last week and came up with a ton of questions as well as Lorne Rodriguez from Keller Williams who has several properties and knows much more than I do.