I attended my first local REIA meeting here in Knoxville this evening.

If that is a no-go, you can ask for references from other investors at REIA meetings and local meetups.

I want to start an event or meet up, but I am looking for more advice, suggestions, or tips from others and what they have learned from their experiences.

Now this is different from our initial meeting and his take was that the house would sell and at 320K.

I question whether these people would meet your renting requirements when doing leases. 

This deal is probably outside what you should acquire at this point.And what creative financing you can do depends upon what the seller will agree to.I suggest taking this deal to your local REIA meetings once you have it under contract and let someone more experienced do the deal and explain to you what they did.

I'd target investors by showing up to every REIA meeting and local investor meetup I could.

I would suggest connecting with your local meet ups there, and talking to those that are buy and hold investors. 

You just have to play nicely with the SEC like what @Robert Borr was saying.Step #1- Just go meet people that you believe would be interested in learning what you have to say in the future (Don't talk about returns, etc. 

I went to the meeting last night at the library.