1. The forum is a great place for links – make sure to create a forum signature with the proper anchor text. After that, a few quick brainless comments a day will produce valuable back links, which are obviously important for SEO. The networking opportunities are great there as well.

2. Profile page – load with back links and good anchor text. Make the headline in the profile section something that you want to rank for in the search engines. EX: Las Vegas Mortgage Pro

3. Colleagues – Don’t accept anyone unless they are someone you will want to do business with. Otherwise, your profile page will get spammed with junk. There aren’t any major benefits of having colleagues.

4. Groups – Ok, but not enough networking or link juice benefits for me to spend my time participating in.

5. Blogs – Great for loading with links and creating exposure for your own business or web sites. There aren’t any conversations around those blogs, so use your time wisely. Links and exposure – save the blogging conversation for Active Rain

You are absolutely right about Active Rain being the strongest real estate social networking site available. However, it is important to have links coming from several high traffic industry related sites.