What we’re about
Welcome to GRID!
GRID Gaithersburg is a real estate community built by investors for investors. We are a group of real people doing real deals.
Our core mission is to connect to, learn from, and collaborate with like-minded people interested in building wealth and creating impact through real estate.
We welcome investors of all experience levels. We are life-long learners and believe everyone has value to share.
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How it works
We meet once a month, 12 months a year, on the same day, week, and time of the month. Each month we cover a different investing topic in the Lifecycle of an Investor—ranging from wholesaling to rehabbing to becoming a bank through private lending.
Our meetings are not sales pitches. They are opportunities for us to dive deep into a real estate topic, connect with local experts in our marketplace, and build long-term relationships with other doers and deal-makers.
All of our events are 100% FREE.
Learn more about us at gridinvestor.com
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Join the GRID Facebook Community online 3K+
https://www.facebook.com/groups/gridinvestor
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Your GRID Leadership
GRID Gaithersburg is led by Nick Chaconas and Karen Parnes.
I’m Nick Chaconas, a Montgomery County native. After 20+ years in real estate, I thought I saw it all as an agent. Then I turned my attention to becoming a real estate investor and have had my eyes opened on more than one occasion. In addition to building my own real estate investing business, my life’s work now also revolves around mentoring agents and investors to achieve optimal growth.
Having lived through the highs and lows of entrepreneurship, personal challenges, and reinvention, I’ve mastered the art of integrating resilience, strategic thinking, and mindfulness into every aspect of life.
Drawing from a wealth of experiences that range from overcoming financial struggles to pushing my physical limits in Spartan races (Aroo!), I’ve built a mindset that embraces doing hard things, protecting time, and mastering emotions. I help agents/investors achieve clarity in their goals, create enduring habits, and align their daily actions with long-term visions of success.
My coaching is rooted in practicality. Whether it’s scaling businesses, fostering deep
relationships, or committing to personal development, I believe in actionable strategies that deliver tangible results.
Inspired by a drive for excellence, I blend the wisdom of meditation, physical fitness, and business acumen to help individuals create lives of impact and fulfillment.
If you’re ready to transform your life by challenging the norm and unlocking your potential, let’s connect. Together, we’ll elevate every aspect of your journey.
Karen Parnes is a real estate investor and a licensed Maryland Realtor with over 20 years of experience.
Her journey into real estate began in 2003 when her family and she purchased their first home. Although it was not the right house for them, the experience became the spark that ignited her real estate career. She recognized the need for a better way for buyers and sellers.
Karen learned how to help families, like her own, escape financial hardships through creative real estate solutions. She focuses on education, explaining the process and options while giving clients the knowledge they need to make informed decisions, preventing them from going through what her family experienced.
Over the years, she has had the honor of helping hundreds of clients achieve their real estate goals. Her background includes being on the ground level of launching two prop-tech startups, owning her brokerage, and building systems that help agents, teams, and investors succeed.
Passionate about coaching, she now mentors both agents and investors by guiding them through deals and allowing them to learn hands-on by observing her work and processes.
Upcoming events (4+)
See all- How To Estimate Renovations: Analyze Costs + Minimize MistakesEmbrace Home Loans, Rockville, MD
This month's meeting is one of the most popular—How to Estimate Renovations.
Come out and hear us explain how we estimate renovations on our investment properties BEFORE we actually go look at them.
It's a critical skill that will save you time and make you money.
We'll talk about the types of renovation and materials we put in our properties and show examples from our deals.
Come for the training, stay for the networking!━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Did you miss it?
Watch all GRID event playback on YouTube━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Join the GRID Facebook Community
Join the online GRID community here to post deals, ask questions, and connect with other investors across the globe. - Show Me The Money! Where To Find The Money + How To Become the BankIl Porto Restaurant, Gaithersburg, MD
Here’s the short version—the money is the easy part.
Find a motivated seller, get yourself a deal and the money will find you.
Come out to this important discussion to find out how to get money for your deals from lenders, private sources, friends, family, and GRID itself.
Doing deals isn’t the only way (and maybe not even the best way) to make money investing in real estate.
This event is also about how YOU can be the bank and how to properly structure loans to other investors that can provide solid, safe returns on your money—without getting your hands dirty.
Come for the training, stay for the networking!━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Did you miss it?
Watch all GRID event playback on YouTube━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Join the GRID Facebook Community
Join the online GRID community here to post deals, ask questions, and connect with other investors across the globe. - How To Wholesale: Assigning Real Estate Contracts For Quick ProfitsEmbrace Home Loans, Rockville, MD
Want to make money in real estate with little-to-no risk, getting paid in days, and never getting your hands dirty?
That’s wholesaling.
Yes, it’s legal. Yes, you can do it with practically no money or experience. And no, it’s not a get-rich-quick scheme.
But it is the foundation for learning the skills to succeed in every other aspect of investing, so we think it’s one of the most important topics of the year.
Come for the training, stay for the networking!━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Did you miss it?
Watch all GRID event playback on YouTube━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Join the GRID Facebook Community
Join the online GRID community here to post deals, ask questions, and connect with other investors across the globe. - How to Use Self-directed IRAs: Watch Your Money Grow Tax-freeIl Porto Restaurant, Gaithersburg, MD
Come hear from the experts on how to buy, hold, flip, rent and profit from real estate, all using the tax-deferred or heavily-tax-advantaged Self-Directed IRA (Individual Retirement Account).
We'll have a representative from a Self-Directed IRA specialist to explain the rules and benefits of this powerful wealth-building strategy.Come for the training, stay for the networking!
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Did you miss it?
Watch all GRID event playback on YouTube━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Join the GRID Facebook Community
Join the online GRID community here to post deals, ask questions, and connect with other investors across the globe.
