National REIA Mid-Year Conference – fun

River Walk

Don & I  here at Tucker One, just came back from San Antonio this past week.  We went to attend the Mid-Year Conference of National REIA.  This is a once a year event where the owner, managers, and boards of Real Estate Investment groups from across the country get together and discuss the current state of real estate investing in general, the concerns and needs of their fellow investors in their groups, how the groups can work together to assist each other and the industry and to have a little fun.

This is to share with you our reader some of the notes we brought home to Kansas City from this event.

First we will start with the fun.

On the beautiful Riverwalk in San Antonio TX, you will find a beautiful setting full of hotels and places to eat, with a few shops mixed in.  The travel guides stated there were lots of shops, but not in the area where most of our activities took place, and we didn’t have the time or energy to walk to the big mall on the riverwalk where they were.  So mostly when we were not in the conference, we were looking at flowers, trees, odd birds, other people and eating.

We had a few extra house the first day as we arrived a day early.  We took the time to walk the 5 blocks to the Alamo and take the free tour through the old fort.  Everyone I had talked to had discussed how disappointed they had been when they went to the Alamo, but I found it to be about what I expected for an adobe church built in about 1800, used for over 100 years and then probably not maintained very well for the next 50, and then restored as much as possible. 

The mission itself and the story, is a good one for the real estate investor in that all of these people from all over the country came together to fight and while they did not succeed, they did not give up.  Allowing TX to succeed eventually.  And we as investors need to do that in today’s economy, only we are not fighting with musket balls, bowie knives, and cannon.  But with credit, banks, and housing prices and housing price stability.

So hang in there, don’t give up.  If one strategy does not seem to work, try another.  You can succeed in this market with real estate investing, you just have to find the right strategy that works for you and the times.

If you do go to San Antonio, I would recommend a cooler time as it was 105 degrees most of the time and almost too hot to stand.  But was still fun.

We also were able as a group to take a river boat cruise.  A few of the sponsors of the event were able to provide 3 of the little riverboats for us to cruise on.  First let me say the cruise was very interesting, but we really needed a 4 th boat as we were packed in there like sardines, and for a group of investors that can’t seem to stop talking about real estate and the state of things, it was a little tough for the guide to talk over all the networking.  So if you are planning a group outing on one of these riverboats, find out the full capacity, and plan to put about 75% of capacity per boat and make that work in the budget.  Also with the full capacity, the boats were running a little slower so I think it took us an extra 45 mintues.  If you are planning a group outing, you might also have them plan to dump you out in the area where all the places to eat are. 

We have one more high point of fun and this one actually involves you.  You see the main sponsor of National REIA this year is Home Depot – contact your local real estate investment group or our group at MAREInet.com to find out how you can access all the great new benefits at Home Depot.  And the most important topic of the week end was legislation, more legislation and benefits later.  Anyway, Home Depot sponsored a party at one of the local dance clubs from 8pm to 11pm, with all the food and drinks we wanted, a silent action where national trainers had donated a bunch of training materials, that we could bid on, and National REIA was taking donations.  We got to mix, mingle and dance till about 11 for free and National REIA and Home Depot raised about$3,000 for legislation and lobby efforts.

Other than that we spent a lot of time networking with other group leaders from across the country.  We found out how real estate works, what other people do, and that we are all pretty much the same no matter where you are from.  We got to meet with people from Hawaii (yes the REIA group from Hawaii) came in and we are trying to get them to host Mid-Year in 2011, but I doubt it will happen.  We met with people from NY, PA, WA, FL, TX, AZ, OH, WY, CO, IL, KY, GA, MS, and probably about 10 other states that I can’t remember. 

If you belong to a REIA group in your state, we probably met with some of your group leaders and they were there along with Don and I learning ways to help you succeed in your real estate business.