Your Local Real Estate Investment Club could make you RICH!
By Jimmy V. Reed
I want to make money in real estate, but “I just don’t know how.” Let me tell you, I cannot count how many time in 20 plus years of investing I have heard that. I would always respond every time the same way: have you been to your local real estate club? And the answers would vary from; I didn’t know I had one, to yeah but all they ever want to do is sell me more training.
So first up; I didn’t know I had one. Well let’s go back about 22 years ago as I sat in my first LIVE Real Estate training class. Let me tell you I was pumped and ready to go make my first million. But as the class came to an end my mind started to instill some fear tactics. Now of course I was the one in control of these infiltrations to my mind, but what starts to happen after your weekend of pumped up steroid training is reality starts to set in. You start to question what if I cannot find a deal, or any cash, or even a buyer? What will I do? Well on the last day of my training the company that was teaching us allowed the local Dallas Real Estate Club Aireo to come in and give out a free pass to their next meeting. I knew then this was the blessing I was looking for. They actually talked to the students for about ten minutes, telling us we needed to come because there would be all kinds of investors, money lenders, title companies and even CASH Buyers!
So a few weeks went by and I went to this meeting and let me tell you it was the best thing I ever did. That first meeting though was really scary for me; I was in a world I didn’t feel very comfortable in. Then about ten minutes after I was there I saw a familiar face from my training class. I went up and we started talking about our training and this club we were at, and all the folks there. A little later we saw someone else from our class. Soon we started all forming a little Networking group, and talking about what we had learned and what our concerns were about investing. Then we talked about the current situation we were in, the club, how we felt like the little fish in a big pond with some really Big Fish. We really believed the seasoned investors were going to swallow us up. Soon the meeting started and there were different folks coming up to the front and one I remembered the most was this guy named John Zarrella. Man, he was loud and funny and was throwing out ideas I never had even heard at my LIVE training. I thought this guy knows a lot. What I really liked is he didn’t look like an investor. In fact, he had long hair and even an earring in his ear. But then I found out he was one of the guys who created the club.
Over the years I would go hear him speak and he had his own local trainings. I attended one of the club sponsored Saturday trainings where they taught me how to fill out my local contract. I was so happy because this was one of those things that really worried me in the beginning. Anyway, I learned a lot in that one day training. In fact, there must have been a hundred people in it that day. Then I realized there were other newbie investors out there just like me.
Well let’s bring in the Second topic folks are concerned about at clubs: Sales! At the end of the training that day I felt very sure of myself that I could actually fill out a Texas contract with no problems, especially since they gave me four examples of some already filled out. As my wife and I started to leave we were talking with other investors who had taken the class and to my surprise they were unhappy with the class. They were upset that the class cost what it did, and that they had already been spending too much money with all these trainings.
I was thinking to myself yeah I have spent some money but, I also knew that I needed this training if I wanted to get paid in real estate. I saw the value of someone who already made money doing this business showing me how to do it also, and faster than me trying to do it on my own. In fact I was sure it would have cost me more and taken longer if I would have tried to do it all myself.
A few months went by and I finally did my first deal and got paid. I was so happy it had actually worked. I have to tell you it did not even go as I had planned but it did work. Years later I started doing my own trainings. I knew if I taught people what I knew I could multiply my efforts and do more deals.
Twenty something years later that club Aireo had always been there for me to go and network with other investors, learn from the guest speakers they had, and even allowed me to put my deals I had for sale on their Deal Table. It was still allowing me to make money, in fact in 2002 that club founder John Zarrella and I became partners in the Fort Worth real estate club. Who would have guessed that one day I would be partners with a great investor, friend and Christian Brother, and all because I went to a real estate club?
Now I write you this story on how you can make money at your local real estate club. Keep in mind some investors are not really investors. What I mean is they got into this business to get Rich Quick. They really did not have the right attitude from the beginning. They just did it for the CASH! In fact many newbies do not support their clubs; they only go when they think there is something in it for them. That the guest speaker is going to reveal something they have never heard before. They seem to forget the basics, and that is the ability to network regularly with like-minded individuals who are interested in real estate. They tell themselves I will save the money this month by not going since I really already know how to do the topic of the night. In fact a lot of seasoned investor say the same thing. What they forget is; one you might learn something you did not know in regards to the topic of the meeting that night. Two, who you might meet at that meeting that could change your business forever. Oh yeah, remember they know so much that they want to skip the meeting to save the money. First clue would be if the meeting is going to tap your wallet dry, you may not know as much as you thought. Well I don’t mean to be harsh but think about how the rich in this country do things. They are always looking for ways to get together to brainstorm ideas with each other. They Network all the time, they know the value of it, it’s why they’re RICH!
In closing, that club Aireo had to finally close its doors after some 24 years of teaching and helping investors. A few days after they did I heard from a lot of folks saying wow! how could it be? Why did it happen? Simple; you have to support the things that mean the most to you in life. You usually won’t know what you had till it’s gone. I hope everyone reading will go to www.Nationalreic.org , look under Real Estate clubs for your local meeting, then go to it. Who knows, someone at that meeting may just change your life, teach you something new, and Oh yeah; make you RICH!
Jimmy V. Reed
Jimmy V. Reed of Fort Worth, Texas has been investing in real estate since 1987. In 1991, he started conducting full-day training sessions on Wholesaling. He then began teaching and mentoring others throughout the country. He is currently the founder of the Fort Worth R.E. club www.1REclub.com and has his own real estate training company that includes Wholesale, Probate, Mentoring & a Biblically based Debt Free training course and more!
More info available at www.JimmyReed.net
