I think you are right - realtor blogs have PR on the blog home page but not on internal post pages unless there are inbound links. So you need recommendations from inbound links to your prime posts.

I think with Google Caffeine we are seeing more emphasis on on-page optimisation.

Wow thanks for all the useful info, it sure helps people new to the industry and without an IT background.

These days google is treating profile links as spammy links. So, get rid of profile links. Just make quality links on relevant pages to get your serps up.

It's interesting that four years on the unanswered questions are much the same - which links have value and which don't.