The lyrics of the Beatles song “Come Together” could not be more applicable to real estate investing. In order to be a successful investor, you need a bunch of people to ‘come together’ and make your projects work, no matter if you’re wholesaling, flipping or renting.
You want your contractors, investors, buyers, renters, city inspectors, bankers and whomever else you need to do your bidding as soon as they can (‘right now…over me’).
One way to bring people together to help you find deals and sell deals is with the website Meetup. Technology has now made it possible to ‘meet up’ with people of similar interests from all over the world.
So why not use it to meet buyers and sellers of real estate in your investing area?
The Basics of Meetup
Before you start planning to host the Oscars with your Meetup account, let’s start with the basics of how to set everything up – especially if you haven’t used Meetup before.
Once you head over to Meetup.com, you will need to create an account, or sign in with your Facebook account. Then, Meetup will take you to your homepage where you can choose whether to:
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Search for Meetup groups to join, or
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Start Your Own Meetup group.
You might want to start by searching for Meetup groups to join first. Real estate investors are all about leverage. So why should we go to all the work of hosting your own Meetup group if you can get someone else to do it?
About halfway down your homepage, you’ll see a search bar. From there, you can either search for Meetup groups in your area or by specific category.
If you are anywhere close to a large metro area, I wouldn’t recommend searching on ‘All Meetups’ in your area. There will be a ton of them. I am (pretty) sure you won’t be that interested in learning about a Meetup group called ‘Paint Drying Observers’ or something like that.
Instead type in something like ‘Real Estate Investors’ or ‘Entrepreneurs’ or ‘House Flippers.’
You can even find ‘Real Estate Mogul Meetups’ in various parts of the country.
Once you have searched and found a Meetup group you like, click on their picture. That will take you to that Meetup Group’s homepage where you can you can:
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Join the group;
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See when their next meeting is;
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Review past meetings;
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Browse their membership; or
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Suggest a new meeting.
If you don’t see the specific type of Meetup you would like, why not start your own? All you need to do is go to this page at the Meetup website and select ‘Start a Meetup Group’ at the top of the page.
You will also have to fill out your Meetup’s country and zip code so other people in the local area can find you and join.
Creating Meetups is where Meetup.com makes its money. They have a pricing plan that you can find here. Currently the rates are:
You can also have your members contribute to the meetup through a dues feature that Meetup offers.
Sneaky Meetup Tricks for Real Estate Moguls
Once you have figured out Meetup, you will want to figure out how to use it to make money. It should be as simple as any other marketing strategy:
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Provide value to people and
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Make it easy for them to meet you and hear what you have to say.
Providing value means that if people come to your Meetup, they receive something for making the effort. Valuable stuff might include:
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Lots of other people at the Meetup which provides great networking opportunities.
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A successful real estate investor explaining some profitable real estate niche.
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A question and answer session with a group of successful investors.
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Socializing with a free giveaway (book, cost analysis spreadsheet, sample forms and contracts, etc.).
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Non-real estate investor presentations that can help (lawyers, contractors, city inspectors, title agents, etc.).
Struggling with new ideas for meetings within your Meetup? What about looking at topics done by other similar Meetups? Remember to not just look in your area. 
Browse meetups nationwide or even worldwide.
If you only have a few investors come to your first few meetups, don’t worry. Think about teaming up with another Meetup that is similar in your area. You can share members with them, and pick up some other networking opportunities.
As you organize your meetups, you may want to think about some of the things an event planner would be interested in doing:
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Try to find a venue that is free or very close to free. Negotiate a discount if they want you to pay, particularly if the place serves food or drinks. Your members will probably partake.
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Make sure the place is not noisy during the time you want to hold the meetup.
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Do you have the equipment you need at the place where you are hosting?
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How about parking?
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Think about planning some social events with no pre-arranged topic. You may attract more people to the event and you can still network well.
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Reach out to your group for suggestions on topics, workshops and/or discussions they would like to see.
Here is a guide for organizing Meetups in general.
Organizing a Meetup is not an easy task, especially if you hold regular events. But if you do, you can reap some serious rewards. By being the organizer of a Meetup, people will:
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See you as an expert in real estate.
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Bring you more deals first as they ask, ‘Do you know someone who might be interested in...?’
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Contact you more often outside of the Meetup to help them (and help you).
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Potentially provide you with opportunities for referral fees.
Nothing wrong with attending other meetups to network as well, but hosting meetups may be more profitable for you.
Holla at us
Got any Meetup tips? Leave a note in the comments section below.
Join Meetup – Network! Find groups that would help your investing, and contact the organizer. They can answer your questions or direct you to someone who might help.
Attend Meetup Groups – The more you network, the more likely you will have deals come your way. Go out and get social at various meetup groups in your area.
Start Your Own Group – Ready for the big time? Having your own investing Meetup will go a long way to establish you in your community.
JP Moses
is a real estate investor in Memphis, TN, with experience ranging from land lording to note buying, rehabbing, and wholesaling. However, wholesaling is the area that he enjoys most and where he bring the most experience and expertise to his students.