Especially business journalists.

The beauty of public companies is every three months they tell us how well — or how poorly — they are doing. But the vast majority of companies that we cover are privately owned and don’t have to tell us anything.

Except when those companies become involved in a lawsuit.

Last week Nate Legue wrote about a lawsuit involving Jeff Petry and Frank Wehrstein, the co-owners of Dickerson & Nieman Realtors, the area’s dominant real estate firm.

The suit is interesting just because of the people involved — including Greater Rockford Airport Authority Board Chairman Mike Dunn — but it also gives us a look at Dickerson & Nieman’s finances and hints at how the home sales slowdown is affecting the company.

According to one exhibit, Dickerson & Nieman’s gross revenues grew from $12.6 million in 2003, to $13.6 million in 2004, $14.7 million in 2005 and then hitting $15.3 million in 2006.

Through eight months of 2007, though, the revenues were at $8.6 million, or on pace for $13 million. That’s a generous estimate though. Through August of 2007 home sales were down 16 percent compared to 2006, but in the final four months they fell 25 percent compared to 2006.

The copmany’s net income was taking a hit even before 2007 though. In 2003, Dickerson & Nieman’s net imcome was $1.15 million. That increased to $1.35 million in 2004 and $1.43 million in 2005. In 2006, it fell to $1.18 million and it was $682,000 through August 2007 or on pace for just over $1 million.

With sales down 33 percent in 2008 compared just to 2007, obviously real estate companies — and not just the agents — are taking a hit and now we know, at least in one case, how much.

The company, which has long been the most active home local home builder, didn’t need to. It was building subdivisions all over a five county area.

But I heard a Three Hammer ad on the radio the other day and spotted a billboard ad as well.

To me that’s just another indication of how slow things have gotten in the residential construction industry. For the past several years, Three Hammer wouldn’t have had to advertise. We have maintained a real estate database at the Register Star with every land transaction in Boone, Ogle and Winnebago counties since the beginning of 2003.

I went through it and found all of the Three Hammer Construction sales I was sure were homes built and sold and not vacant lots. Here is what I found:

2003 — 376

2004 — 387

2005 — 345

2006 — 404

2007 — 296

2008 — 64 through June 16.

These totals don’t include Three Hammer’s Stephenson County or Rock County, Wis., subdivisions. Still, as you can see it’s a long fall from 2006.

Still, if you add up the sales, the company has built and sold at least 1,872 houses in Boone, Ogle and Winnebago counties since the start of 2003. If you conservatively average out the house size to be three people, that’s 5,616 people living in Three Hammer houses built in just the last five years.

If Three Hammer were a village, it’d be the ninth largest in the Rock River Valley. There are more people living in those houses than in all of Oregon, Winnebago, Poplar Grove, Byron and Cherry Valley, to name a few.

Another thing about the company, they never talk to the media. I even grew up with one of the heirs to the Three Hammer kingdom and they don’t talk to me. I don’t take it personally. That’s just their policy. But maybe that will change as well.

Woodward is planning a news release next week announcing what will be going up on the landmark building that was built before Loves Park incorporated in 1947. Woodward has long been Loves Park’s largest employer.

Wisconsin-based Blackhawk Bank pulled a building permit June 5 for a new bank branch at 3101 11th St. Blackhawk bought the property from the city of Rockford at the end of January for $328,000. It was once the American Transmission Center, but has been vacant for years and was the site of a fire in 1999 where a Rockford firefighter was injured.

Blackhawk plans to talk more about the new branch next week as well. But back in March Blackhawk said it will feature drive-up banking, a 24-hour ATM, a full-service lobby, and a mortgage and business banking center.

Blackhawk Bank operates seven offices in Beloit, Wis., Rockford, Belvidere, Capron, Machesney Park and Roscoe.

Between April 17 and May 29, 39 of the 60 companies on Star 60 stock index released quarterly earnings. I may have missed a few — there were days five and six were being released at a time. Of those, 21 reported year-over-year earnings increases, which overall is a good sign.

Among the gainers were some of the area’s largest employers, United Technologies, which owns Hamilton Sundstrand in Rockford and Taylor Co. in Rockton, Woodward Governor and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Of the ones that reported decreased earnings, some were directly tied to the nation’s struggling real estate and construction industry, including Lowe’s Companies Inc., The Home Depot and The Valspar Corp.

Of course, just looking at whether net income went up or down compared to the year before is not a perfect indicator. For example, Reliance Steel & Aluminum, parent company of Liebovich Brothers Inc., made $107.4 million in its first quarter. That’s good money but down 4 percent from 2007.

Of the 39 companies that I kept track of this earnings cycle, there were five that outright lost money — Sears Holdings Corp., General Motors Corp., UAL Corp., our own AMCORE Financial and GateHouse Media Inc., which owns the Rockford Register Star.

So I’m definately on the wrong side of this economic trend.

Another thing I looked at this week is business bankruptcies. Through May, 13 companies in Boone, Ogle and Winnebago counties have filed for bankruptcy protection compared to just five in the first five months of 2007.

At least six of the bankuptcies this year have ties to the struggling real estate and construction market, including two of the three bankruptcies in May — Arco Pool & Spa Inc. of Rockford and W. Molitor Construction Inc. of South Beloit.

Glen Turpoff, executive director of the Northern Illinois Building Contractors Association, said that wasn’t a surprise.

“There isn’t a business in any industry that isn’t closely examining how it’s going to get through this economic cycle,” Turpoff said. “It may have started in real estate and construction, but it’s spread to every industry.”

The month-to-month increase was the largest percentage jump since May of 2007.

The average sale price through May was $138,193, also down more than 3 percent from May 2007’s average of $142,778.

Not for good luck mind you, but rather because I have one of those plastic water cooler jugs that we’re using to collect change.

That penny, combined with a lot of other pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters and gold dollars — I love the gold dollars, will be part of my family’s spending money when we go to Disney World in the fall.

This morning I checked our accounts online and noticed the federal stimulus money had been deposited. It was like finding a penny, just a lot more of it.

Now I know the federal government — and local retailers — want us to rush out and buy furniture, clothing and a computer with that money. But I think we’re like most people, we’re going to use it to offset our ever increasing expenses. We put some aside for the Disney trip and some aside for extra spending over the summer because the cost of entertaining a 5- and 9-year-old in the summer seems to go up exponentially each year. The rest are helping pay the bills this month

So in a way, we’re delaying the stimulus. The extra cash will filter back in slowly from June through October — but eventually all of it will make its way back into the economy. The smartest move would be to take all of it and put it in an IRA, but very few are in that kind of financial position.

That’s my story. What’s yours? Are you using it as mad money and buying that one item you’ve been waiting for or fixing something on the house that has needed fixing? Is anyone taking the ultimate gamble and using the entire check on the Mega Millions for that one shot at glory?

Then I received a couple more, then a few more and a few more.

I’ve ended up ignoring most generally out of laziness not because I didn’t want to accept. I did accept several.

Then I got an invitation from someone I really didn’t want to be LinkedIn with. That got me wondering ‘what is proper LinkedIn etiquette?’

I called Rebecca Kopf of PR Etc. for her opinion. Afterall, public relations professionals are the ultimate networkers.

Kopf said she generally accepts all invitations from professionals she knows. After all, it gives her access to an ever expanding network of people to contact and work with.

Lately, she said she’s been receiving more invitations from people she doesn’t know. That’s a bit trickier.

“If I accept, I’m giving them access to everyone in my network and you have to be very careful with that,” Kopf said.

Kopf did not have an opinion about accepting an invitation from someone you know but don’t really want to Link with because that just hasn’t happened to her.

So really I didn’t find an answer to my original question until I started thinking more about what we do at the newspaper. We make lots and lots of calls to people who have (a) never heard of us or (b) don’t really want to talk to us. We expect them to talk or call us back because we are journalists.

Well, if I’m going to expect that of others, then I at least can take the time to LinkIn. So go ahead and send me your invitations. I’m sorry if I missed it before.

Heartland sold the Perryville Road building to the area’s largest car dealer, Anderson Automotive Group of Rockford, last year for $4.1 million. Anderson officials said the building was not for an auto dealership, but more of an investment property.

When contacted, Mark Bankord, the church’s directional leader, would not disclose the purchase price but called it a “fair deal.”

Few deals stay secret forever, though, and according to the Winnebago County Recorder’s Office, which recorded the sale Feb. 28, Heartland paid $5 million to get the property back. For Anderson Automotive it was a very fair deal. A $900,000 profit in less than a year is good in any business.

The Illinois Department of Revenue released its year-end statistics this week and it showed a tough year for Rockford retailers. The amount of retail sales tax revenue being returned to the city was $24.7 million, down 1.9 percent from 2006.

In contrast, the amount of retail sales going to regional municipalities increased from $24.4 million in 2006 to $25 million in 2007.

Of course, this was inevitable. Cities such as Belvidere, Poplar Grove and Roscoe are among the fastest growing in northern Illinois and retailers are building where the people are going. Illinois 173 is among the fastest growing retail corridors in the state and 2007 saw the opening of a lifestyle center at CherryVale Mall.

It wasn’t a huge drop, falling from $7.98 billion as of June 30, 2006, to $7.8 billion on June 30, 2007. Still, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. it was the first time since 1996 that the amount of money deposited in Boone, Ogle, Stephenson and Winnebago county banks declined from the year before.

What does this mean? I’m not entirely sure, but if you look at bank deposits for the decade, it appears as if a lot of people benefitted from the high flying housing market of 2003 through 2006.

In 2002, there was $6.24 billion sitting in local banks. That amount increased by 9.7 percent in 2003, 1.5 percent in 2004, 6.8 percent in 2005 and then 7.6 percent in 2006. A lot of families were able to sock some money away and it appears as if they had to give some of it back in 2007. Still, in an economy where consumer debt and family expenses continue to rise faster than wages, any give back is painful.

Rhonda Torossian

Remember her? She was the Rockford loan officer sentenced to federal prison for her part in a five-person mortgage scam ring from 2001 to 2003. The group admitted to falsifying Social Security numbers and creating fraudulent employment verifications, bank checks and credit letters so families could receive mortgage loans insured by the Federal Housing Authority.

Torossian was sentenced in late December to 20 months in federal prison and fined nearly $500,000 for her role. A Realtor in the scheme also received a 20-month sentence while three accomplices received probation and were ordered to pay restitution.

I was going through some public records tonight and she popped up twice.

* In January, the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation yanked her loan origination license for “not informing the Department of a financially related conviction.”

* And in February, Torossian filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, meaning the taxpayers who footed the bill for the more than 20 foreclosures out of 32 FHA loans Torossian fraudently secured are unlikely to get any of it back.