Hey All, I am new to the bigger pockets community and excited about learning about real estate investing. I would like to invest in single family and duplex's/triplex's. I live in the Denver area and would like to find a way to connect with people who are active in real estate investing. Does anyone have recommendations for meet ups or groups that meet locally?
@Theo Farver You are off to a good start. Quite a few of the investors I've spoken to recently spent a good amount of time (half a year to a year), going to every single real estate meetup they could find, and Denver has a lot of real estate meetups. There is the John Fischer club, Bigger Pockets Bad *** investors, @Jennifer Ward's long-distance investing group, etc. I would advise though to make a plan and stick to a timeline. I advise doing this for two reasons: 1.) Denver (and Denver metro) is expensive and seemingly getting more expensive by the minute; and 2.) it can be easy for first-time investors to get stuck in analysis paralysis and put off actual investing. Better to have a plan and avoid that.
@Theo Farver set up some keyword alerts for your areas of interest. Locally go to the networking tab above and select the events item from the drop down menu. Search for what you are interested in and that will let you see what's going on. Another local source is meetup.com where you can search. A word of caution about meetup.com is that not all events there are free and some have sales pitches as well. Postings here on BP for events in the network tab must disclose costs and sales pitches.
Welcome to BiggerPockets! You came to the right place to learn more about real estate and connect with other motivated investors. BP is full of great content, so I strongly recommend you to have a look at the following resources:
@Theo Farver You are off to a good start. Quite a few of the investors I've spoken to recently spent a good amount of time (half a year to a year), going to every single real estate meetup they could find, and Denver has a lot of real estate meetups. There is the John Fischer club, Bigger Pockets Bad *** investors, @Jennifer Ward's long-distance investing group, etc. I would advise though to make a plan and stick to a timeline. I advise doing this for two reasons: 1.) Denver (and Denver metro) is expensive and seemingly getting more expensive by the minute; and 2.) it can be easy for first-time investors to get stuck in analysis paralysis and put off actual investing. Better to have a plan and avoid that.
@Theo Farver - focus on single family rentals in the suburbs, that is where we're seeing the most rent growth. Duplexes and triplexes can be prohibitively hard/expensive to get a hold of. If a big down payment isn't in the cards, @Erin Spradlin is a house hacking guru - that's an approach that many of us obtained our first rental through. Get a property manager and/or CPA who is well versed in rental tax law, or educate yourself. Properly depreciating a rental home will equate to thousands back into your pocket each year.
And, agreed the team around you is a very important part of the process. Interestingly, I just polled the ladies of Denver Women Invest for good CPAs and lawyers that focus on real estate. I can report not a lot of people are happy with their CPAs, but we did get a few good references from there and I personally picked my CPA from the list. If and when you need them, Theo, happy to share. Just DM me.
@Theo Farver - Hey Theo! Welcome to BiggerPockets! You found a gold mine of people and information here.
I have three properties and five units here in Denver and am always happy to meet up for a coffee and chat real estate. Shoot me a message if interested.
As for Meetups, I would recommend the Bad A** Real Estate which meets ever 4th Monday of the month at EPIC Brewing. This one is super laid back, grab a beer, and just talk real estate with the dozens of other people there. A great way to start planting the seed for many relationships to come.
If you are interested in House Hacking, there is a house hacking meetup every first Wednesday of each month at Improper City. I host this one and it is typically about an hour of "Grab a beer and network", an hour of "house hacking" information, and then "networking" thereafter.