Thursday’s meeting was absolutely ROCKIN’!  Standing Room Only!

These are just some of the comments we got:

Anya wrote, “A can-do approach to real estate investing!”

Ann wrote, “There was a lot of great information!”

Karen Lee wrote, “This was my first meeting with BostonAreia and it was full of invaluable info on raising capital. I initially went to get more info on the IRA funding for real estate but left with a bunch of new ideas. Many thanks to Bernadette for arranging this meet up. I’ll be back.”

Kathryn Acciari wrote, “Good morning Bernadette,It took me a few years, but I finally made it to a meeting and I am very happy to have done so.  Last night was quite informative, and I am excited to be looking at next steps. What a friendly and professional group of people you have at BostonAREIA.  I hope to be a regular attendee at the meetings and to also be able to provide folks with some connections and leads in Worcester County.  There are deals out here.  Thank you!”

First, I want to thank the members that took the time to walk up to me to thank me for such a great meeting and thank you to those who took the time to send a quick note!  I love the members of Boston AREIA!!!  Kathryn is absolutely right about what a friendly and professional group of people we have.

A quick recap…So, we started our 5pm coaching session which focused on building and developing your connections through networking.  I hope that everyone got a lot out of it and if you are a member of Boston AREIA and you want a copy of the powerpoint, make sure that you contact me at dette101@gmail.com.  Remember folks, it’s important to contact the people you met at the meeting no later than Tue and plan to get together for coffee.

We began the meeting and of course, everyone knows that ENERGY IS EVERYTHING!  The energy you put into something is what you will get out of it.  So, first 5 lucky investors had their business cards pulled out of the proverbial hat and were given the opportunity to stand up and promote themselves to the group.  We followed this with forced networking…which gave folks the opportunity to exchange business cards fast and furious with rehabbers, wholesalers, investor savvy Realtors and more…I think that section is a favorite among our investors!

We followed the networking section with Dickens Pierre-Louis putting together a market update…we actually sped through this section because we had so much jam packed into the meeting…I will be posting this soon.  Thank you soooo much Dickens!  Our mentee, Mike Fitzpatrick got up and talked about how he and Jacqui are progressing and asked if folks could please vote on their logo – check out the blog post!  Then, Peg Graveline and Lisa West of JEM Property Group and Dan McKenna of Mckenna Family Homes walked through the numbers of the Walpole deal!  They made it real and dispelled some of those beliefs people get from the flipping houses shows on tv.  After that, we introduced our phenomenal panel of funding experts.  Peter McLoughlin talked about hard money, how it’s used, what a lender will expect from the borrower, one of the hottest topics based on questions asked by the group, was Investing through your IRA with Kevin Collins of Advanta IRA, then Ric Beaudoin of Sage Bank went over traditional lending, Kim Harrington covered how to develop your funding partners and Peg Graveline covered JVing with other investors to get your deals done.  What a great night!  I have to tell you, I had more people walk up to me at the end of the meeting to tell me how much they appreciated the programming and the speakers!  Thank you so much to Peter, Kevin, Ric, Kim and Peg!

Next month, we are doing a special coaching session from 5pm – 5:30pm for members.  Ric Beaudoin is going to come back and he’s going to go over becoming credit worthy for those with credit problems and maximizing your credit score with those who don’t have issues, but would love tips to get your score as high as possible.  After that, it’s all about exit strategies….so, the contract is signed, NOW WHAT?

See you next month!  And, remember, if you need something or if I can help with anything between meetings, feel free to reach out to me.  Happy Investing!

Yours in success,

Bernadette Trafton, Boston AREIA Chief Connector