What do Boca Raton, FL, Normal, IL, Germantown, MD, and Ogden, UT have in common? They are home to the latest four banks to shutter their doors in 2010, bringing the total failed bank count this year to 26. With over 700 banks on the FDIC’s watch list, 2010 could prove to be the year of extreme bank failure across the US.

Sun American Bank, Boca Raton, Florida

The FDIC, in conjunction with the Florida Office of Financial Regulation, closed Sun American Bank on March 5, 2010. At the same time, First-Citizens Bank & Trust Company and the FDIC entered into a loss-share transaction on $433.0 million of Sun American Bank’s assets assuming all of the deposits of the failed bank.

Sun American Bank had approximately $535.7 million in total assets and $443.5 million in total deposits by December 31, 2009, and the 12 branches of Sun American Bank will be reopened as branches of First-Citizens Bank & Trust Company.

The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) for this individual closure will be $103.8 million. Sun American Bank is the 23rd FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the fourth in Florida.

Distressed Pro’s BankProspector shows weak capital adequacy ratios at Sun American, $63 million in non-accrual distressed asset totals and over $10 million in OREO. The bulk of the institution’s distress was centered in commercial and construction loan asset types.

Bank of Illinois, Normal, Illinois

Recently, the Bank of Illinois was closed by the FDIC and the Illinois Department of Financial Professional Regulation – Division of Banking. This failure represents the third FDIC-insured banking institution to close in Illinois and the 24th to fail in the nation this year. Heartland Bank and Trust Company of Bloomington, Illinois has assumed all of the deposits of Bank of Illinois, approximately $211.7 million in total assets and $198.5 million in total deposits. The 2 branches of Bank of Illinois have reopened as branches of Heartland Bank and Trust Company.

Bank of Illinois was burdened by distress in their construction and residential loan portfolios, and was carrying OREO balances over $1 million in both multifamily and commercial asset types.

Waterfield Bank, Germantown, Maryland

Waterfield Bank of Germantown, MD is the first bank to fail in Maryland this year. Unique to Waterfield Bank is the fact that the failed institution had a solo branch location and namely took deposits from customers via the Internet and 38 affinity groups.

Waterfield Bank had $155.6 million in assets and $156.4 million in deposits by December 31, 2009. At the time of closing, the amount of deposits exceeding FDIC insurance limits totaled approximately $407,000. Depositors with more than $250,000 at Waterfield Bank should call the FDIC at (800) 830-4735 to make an appointment to discuss the status of their funds.

Waterfield Bank was troubled with negative capital adequacy ratios, and distress mainly in their construction and residential loan portfolios, where 23% and 16% was non-current respectively.

Centennial Bank, Ogden, Utah

Centennial Bank of Ogden, UT was closed on March 5, 2010 by the FDIC in conjunction with the Utah Department of Financial Institutions. Zions First National Bank of Salt Lake City accepted the failed bank’s direct deposits from the federal government

The FDIC was unable to find another financial institution to take over the banking operations of Centennial Bank and brokered deposits will be wired once brokers provide the FDIC with the necessary documents to determine if any of their clients exceed the insurance limits. Customers who placed money with brokers should contact them directly for more information about the status of their funds.

The failed bank is the 26th FDIC-insured institution to fail this year and the second in Utah. It had approximately $215.2 million in total assets and $205.1 million in total deposits by December 31, 2009 and approximately $1.8 million in uninsured funds by the time of closing.

The cost of the failure to its DIF is estimated to be $96.3 million. BankProspector shows that Centennial Bank was burdened with significant construction loan portfolio distress, capital adequacy ratios between 1% and 3%, and OREO balances over $35 million.

US banks reported an increase in distressed mortgage and REO volume of nearly 10% over the previous quarter. Troubled real estate and distressed whole loans with banks now top $352 Billion, up from a little more than $320 Billion in the previous quarter.

Residential Real Estate Problems

As expected, residential real estate continued to be the dominant problem facing the nation’s banks in terms of dollar volume of distressed assets. For the first time, distressed loans and residential REO topped $200 Billion, up from $179.6 Billion in the previous quarter. Probably the most disturbing part of this trend is that the biggest increase came in the 90+ Day Late category, which jumped 22% in a single quarter. This suggests that problems are accelerating rather than abating.

Lenders only increased their residential REO balances by 1.6%, while non-accrual jumped 7.7%. Clearly there is a significant backup in processing foreclosures. It’s hard to see a way that this continued surge won’t result in a significant increase in available residential REO, and ultimately, lower home prices. It is important to point out that these figures are based on whole loan totals and not MBS, which encompasses the majority of residential mortgages. It would be reasonable, however, to assume that portfolio and securitized mortgages are experiencing similar trends.

Troubled Multifamily Property

Distressed multifamily balances continue to make up only a small fraction of the sea of bad loans and REO, but this past quarter the asset type saw the biggest increase in problems out of the four asset types that we track. Non-performing multifamily loan balances surged 23.3% last quarter while multifamily REO balances ballooned by 21.2%. So while distressed multifamily opportunities are rapidly increasing, the asset type still only comprises 3% of all real estate portfolio problems for America’s banks, 1,158 banks are reporting non-performing multifamily loans while 655 report multifamily REO. As of Q4 2009 banks are showing only $11.13 Billion in troubled multifamily loans, up from $9.19 Billion in the previous quarter.

Commercial Real Estate Distress

Banks started to book commercial real estate into REO at an increased pace at the end of 2009. Commercial REO balances jumped nearly 21% from the previous quarter. Non-performing (non-accrual) commercial real estate loans bumped up 15.4% while 90 Day Late loans dipped 7%, indicating that some lenders may be moving to take their CRE knocks sooner rather than later. A counter point to this is the fact that while banks are holding a little more than $7 Billion in commercial REO, their non-accrual CRE loans stand at $37.7 Billion, representing more than a 5-fold increase. Expect to see some of this move through the pipeline over the course of the year.

Construction Loans and Failed Projects

Construction loans make up 25% of our bank’s problems with a total bill of $89 Billion. This number only increased .4%. Construction REO jumped 14.4%, but late and non-accrual construction loans dropped .3% and 17.8% respectively. You could say, it would seem, that the one bright spot is that construction loan problems are abating. I’m hesitant to declare that, however, due to the fact that banks continue to whistle past the graveyard with non-performing construction loans.

Banks have made almost no progress in 3 quarters in reducing the level of construction loan non-accrual. Construction loans are usually fairly short term loans and banks haven’t been making them for a while, this accounts for the dwindling numbers. Not making construction loans is a double-edged sword, however, because while banks aren’t lending they have huge volumes of failed construction projects for sale. If developers can’t borrow, how can they buy?

Construction has been the leading cause of bank failures over the last 6 months. Expect to see many more who are failing to take meaningful action towards recovery on these projects. A lot of the bad construction loans are broken or failed condo projects, busted sub-divisions and the like. Well positioned developers could see a flood of opportunity this year.

Look for individual state and asset type reports over the next two weeks as we dive into BankProspector and pull out the data. Join our email newsletter, sign up for a Free State and US Bank Data account, or, start working on your own and sign up for BankProspector to access the distressed real estate data for each US bank directly.

This is the third in a series of five post mortems on the banks that were closed on January, 22nd 2010.
Charter Bank of Santa Fe, NM was a $1.25 Billion dollar bank. It was closed on Friday by the FDIC and reopened as a Beal Bank subsuduary on Monday morning. Beal Bank is a well capitalized but still aggressive lender based in Plano, TX. Charter Bank’s stats on its final call report were as follows:

• Tier 1 Capital Ratio: Less Than 1%
• Non Current Real Estate Loans: 9.41%
• Non-Accrual Real Estate: $67,902,000
• OREO: $21,966,000

This is the first in this series where the problem isn’t glaringly obvious. Charter Bank had made a significant investment in residential loans as well as construction loans. Although total construction problems exceed the residential loan and REO problems by about 25%. Charter Bank had a little more than $800 Million in mortgage loans out at the time that it failed, $100 Million of that was in construction, $114 Million in commercial property loans, and then the $118 Million in loans on land.

Land loans are not something that we track currently in BankProspector, through we will be tracking these in BankProspector V2.0 which is due out towards the end of March. Charter Bank had more than $27 Million in non-performing land loans, with no REO according to our research.

Charter Bank Santa Fe, NM Cause of Death: Residential and Construction Loan Complications

At the end of this week we are briefly reopening our free trial offer of BankProspector. If you’re looking for distressed loans and REO direct from banks you should apply.

While securitized pools of home loans certainly make up the bulk of the distressed residential real estate in the US, portfolio loans are having their fair share of trouble as well. Residential REO, nonaccrual loans, and loans reported as 90 days late all increased. Residential portfolio loan problems stand at nearly $160B.

Loans that became more than 90 days late increased by 13.6% to $64.8B by the end of Q2. Loans reported as nonaccrual, meaning they’re deemed to have little chance of being repaid according to terms, increased 6.8% to $83.5B. Residential REO, bank owned homes, increased only 1.14%.

While most residential loans are securitized and traded as investment instruments portfolio loans are held at the banks where the loan was made. BankProspector tracks whole loans for four real estate categories and gives distressed real estate professionals access to the real estate records of more than 8000 lenders nation wide.