The reorganization of HomeSeekers has been shrouded in secrecy. Considering the current climate on the Internet, is that such a good idea?

Investors are deserting technology companies, as proven by the NASDAQ slump. Listservs and message boards show that brokers and agents are suspicious of vendors, aggregators and others who hang their shingles on the Internet. The real estate industry, whether they are investors, customers, or secret competitors, would like to know what is going on at HomeSeekers.

Are things on the mend? The way things look now, it's hard to tell. There is almost no information to go on. If you're a journalist, you're completely out of luck. Repeated attempts to contact the company by Realty Times have been ignored. Phone calls to interim CEO Joseph Harker and his company HomeMark have also gone unanswered. No information about HomeMark can be found on the Internet.

While no company has an obligation to talk to the press, it's certainly strange behavior to go completely underground. Why would a company do that? Perhaps it wants to fly under competitors' radar. Perhaps they are a huge coalition with lots of money that will cause the stock to spike upward when their true identity is known. Perhaps they are so small that they don't want anyone to know how teeny they really are. Or, pending stockholder vote on the new ownership, they don't want another company to beat them to the buyout punch - at least not before they have a chance to turn things around.

And that is apparently the intention, judging by HomeSeekers' latest press release.

HomeSeekers has announced that it is bringing in a turnaround specialist to be its new CEO and president. B.J. Rone, said the release, has 25 years of financial and operational experience. Commented HomeSeekers Chairman Joseph Harker, "We could not have found a more qualified, professional leader than B.J. Rone. His turnaround track record, knowledge and real-world experience, and his passion for this business opportunity will serve our shareholders well."

Rone is a partner of Tatum CFO Partners, LLP, an executive staffing service for chief financial officers. Among his turnaround successes was the "fresh non-airline" perspective that he brought to Reno Airlines. He helped the cash-poor company raise $35 million and oversaw the company's acquisition by American Airlines.

Also from the release: From 1993 to 1995 Mr. Rone was CEO and president of Advacare, Inc. in Dallas, Texas, a Nasdaq reporting company providing medical billing, collections and physician consulting services with 1,600 employees, 53 offices in 11 states, and 5,500 doctor and hospital clients. Mr. Rone restructured the company and managed the company from a $2 million per quarter operating loss to a $600 K quarterly operating profit over an 18 month period. In early 1993 Advacare stock was at $1.50 per share, which gave the company a market value of $18 million. Mr. Rone subsequently sold the company for $109 million.

With no real estate experience listed on his resume, presumably, Rone will bring a fresh non-real estate perspective to HomeSeekers. He won't need real estate experience because the board members have that. Consider the new Chairman and a few new board members.

The new majority stockholders, HomeMark, has done a clean sweep of executive personnel, including HomeSeekers founder John Giaimo. The privately held company reveals the names of no other officers or board members. Surely there are some investors but we don't know who they are because HomeMark is privately held.

Harker is a former Keller Williams agent, still listed on his family's home page as a buyer's agent. A call to the Dallas real estate brokerage revealed that he no longer works there as an agent because he is starting a company called HomeMark.

That's interesting because HomeSeekers has another connection to Dallas - a strategic deal with The Realty Alliance, the nation's largest association of independent brokers, headquartered in Big D. Realty Alliance is a for-profit consortium of top brokers, who become members by invitation only. Members must have company production of $500 million and 5,000 transaction sides in the previous year to be eligible to join. Included in the deal were two brokers whom the Realty Alliance has installed on HomeSeekers' board. While both are big brokers, one is Bill Raveis, founder of Home-Link, an affinity services enabling firm which appeals to independent brokers. Raveis is also the owner of William Raveis Real Estate, ranked 49 out of the Top 100 real estate companies, according to Realtor Magazine, a publication of the National Association of Realtors.

Under the agreement, HomeSeekers was to jointly market and distribute technology solutions to the Realty Alliance and its members and it will develop, host and maintain the Realty Alliance national real estate web portal. According to HomeSeekers, the deal could potentially serve as many as 64,000 real estate agents with technology solutions, who are responsible for approximately 20 percent of the nation's residential sales volume, $160 billion. The Alliance is made up of 47 of the nation's largest brokers.

"Based on the nationwide average expenditures by a single real estate agent of approximately $800 per year, the technology target market for the Realty Alliance agent base is approximately $50 million annually," said the HomeSeekers release.

According to Charles McKee, CEO of the Realty Alliance, Harker is not a member of Realty Alliance. Neither has the organization invested in HomeMark or in HomeSeekers. HomeSeekers' new ownership will not affect the existing agreement.

So what is the game plan? Is HomeSeekers to remain a public portal, or will it become the nation's largest broker-owned technology consortium? Or both?

In answer, Harker offered this prepared statement to the press: "We are causing significant needed internal change and reorganization to HomeSeekers. Through these changes we plan to position HomeSeekers to achieve sustainable revenue streams and ultimate profitability. In order for HomeSeekers to be competitive and aggressively increase its current market share, we intend to make more changes. Business lines are being evaluated, and those business lines that are not profitable today or are not attractive from a risk-reward point of view will be restructured or eliminated. Our short term goal is to reconfigure the business to create consistent attractive results; put management in place committed to achieving these goals, and to enhance shareholder value. Simultaneously with this restructuring, HomeSeekers is actively seeking acquisitions of other companies and assets that enhance and complement its current and planned future operations."