How to Start a REI Club in my area?

Any tips? ow do I get the word out to like minded folks?

For what it is worth, I am in The Piedmont Triad area of NC. Just check the listings here, and the nearest club is 1 1/2 hours away.

Try http://www.meetup.com/

You organize the meeting and then publicize it through them. They’ll send an email out to anyone in your area whose expresses an interest in real estate meetings. I regularly attend a few of these and some of the meetings are excellent. As you’ll see, they are not limited to real estate.

Excellent, and Duh! on my part. I have used meet up for many other things…

Host a class or training on something. If you can’t, find one of the real estate pros in your area who can train. Maybe one of the Realtors or lenders could speak.

You can also check out Realtor.com and call all the realtors in your area to invite to your club.

Open up the phone book and call mortgage professionals, contractors, etc, and do a big networking thing.

Good luck.

Here’s what I did to start mine in Provo, UT:

  • Scheduled a luncheon at some restaurant with a private room and no fee or minimum order amount
  • Emailed every investor I knew and told them about it
  • Emailed business contacts who might be interested
  • Meetup.com
  • Announce it through the Chamber of Commerce’s newsletter
  • Marked it on online community calendars (Google “[your city] event calendar”)
  • List it in REIClub.com

First month we had 7 people, next month 13, then 19, then 30, then 41, then 55, and now it’s in the 60’s pretty consistently. I haven’t done much since to grow it. I had it at lunch because I hate leaving home at night. I figured it’s a business meeting, so we’ll meet during business hours. Surprisingly, very few people have complained that they can’t make it.

great info Alan.

we did similar things to start our Atlanta Real Estate Masterminds meeting - although not as extensive as yours.

  • emailed every investor we know.
  • started a blog to advertise our meetings http://landtrealestate.blogspot.com/
    -held meeting at a local restuarant in the evenings
  • posted up minutes from our meeting on blog

we had 4 people our first meeting, then 7 and now average about 10 to 12 and will be growing from there.