Both Trello and Podio can serve as decent "deal board" tracking systems, and both are free for the kind of simple use case you're discussing at the moment.I'd strongly suggest starting with Podio because it is way more customizable, powerful, and proven for the Real Estate Investor use case than Trello. 

And it's not very customizeable.

REIBlackbook comes with 10 tracking numbers (no REI rail needed), it has a website  (no carrot needed), it has a CRM that is 100% customizable (no podio needed),

Podio is just a database, we started using it as a CRM, but since it is fully customizable, we've been adding "apps" so it that make our business easier. 

You can always start with Podio free (for up to 5 users) as a "spreadsheet on steroids" that is already much more flexible and customizable than just about any other CRM out there. 

Insurance is customizible at a cost.

Welcome from the even hotter than Sacto area of CHICO.Lots of Meetups in Sacramento-- go to meetup.com and also just like Michael above the biggerpockets.com/meet ...Do keyword alerts too-- all customizeable so you can nail down when folks post in the forums for Sacramento and MFR's or sacramento and commercial or ROSEVILLE and Storage units etc...they are SUPER helpful,Good luck with your education... im on the upslope myself....don't forget the AMAZING PODCASTS.

The CRM is fairly customizable, you can modify it enough to fit the sales/lead tracking needs of any business.

Regardless of the application, be sure you can add customizable questions so you can ask some questions you care about in that stage of the process, it really helps whittle down the people who you may not accept right off the bat with little time. 

WordPress is a great way to leverage automating heavy backend lifting, while still allowing user end flexibility with customizable menus, widgets, & plugins.