What technology problems do you run into on a regular basis and how do you solve them? How do you decide which CRM to use to grow your business? How do you add a listing to your website? What do you need to do to improve your website’s SEO rankings, and who can help you do that? What are the advantages of WordPress over other website/blog platforms such as Blogger or Movable Type? What WordPress plugin works best to create a slideshow on your sidebar? How do you effectively mine Zillow Advice for potential clients? Where should you spend your online advertising dollars and how can you maximize the ROI?

Over the past few years, there have been blog posts here about wide range of real estate technology topics, but there’s still nowhere for you to start a discussion about whatever is on your mind or ask a specific question about your specific situation and get answers from a qualified group of tech savvy professionals. Well, that’s going to change soon.

Enter the soon-to-be-reality Geek Estate Pro, a new WordPress and Internet Marketing community for real estate professionals. Contrary to popular belief that everything online should be free — access to Geek Estate Pro will be $10 a month or $100 per year. As part of Geek Estate being a Virtual Results property, all Virtual Results clients — current & future custom clients as well as clients of our brand new predesigned website platform — will receive a free account for the duration of their partnership with Virtual Results. When I joined Virtual Results, Jim and I both knew COMMUNITY would be a major component to our predesigned platform. And what better place to build that community than in a place full of tech savvy real estate pros? However, that said, you don’t HAVE to be a Virtual Results client to participate in this community (though there will be a private section specifically for VR clients) — and we want this to be broad, all encompassing community with professionals from all corners of the US (and world for that matter) with a wide variety of backgrounds and skill sets.

Why is this going to be a paid community? Well, there are two primary reasons for that, and neither one of them is the reason you are expecting to hear. You’re likely thinking that charging for access is entirely about the money — and I’m here to tell you you’re 100% wrong. The two reasons we want this to be a paid community are as follows:

1. SPAM FREE – while I was on the marketing team at Zillow moderating the community, some of my least fun nights and weekends consisted of trying to get rid of spammers running rampant in Home Q&A (now Zillow Advice). Quite frankly, I don’t want to deal with spammers again, and I’m guessing you don’t either — so we’re going to charge a nominal monthly fee to keep them out.
2. The quality of discussions will be higher – we’re not going after quantity of conversations, we’re after quality. We want serious professionals who care about their business.

All that said, the readership here at Geek Estate Blog has been a very loyal group over the past few years, and I want to reward you for sticking around through thick and thin. Here’s the deal — fill out this Google form by March 31st to get a free 1 year subscription to Geek Estate Pro.

Stay tuned for further details on the actual implementation of the first step, our forum.

Lastly, I want to make sure everyone knows the Geek Estate Blog content as it stands today will remain free for everyone. Questions about anything? Let me know in the comments.