Bad Real Estate Bets Sank Colonial Bancgroup

What killed Colonial Bancgroup? A glance at the company's latest "call report," the financial statement banks file with industry regulators (publicly available through the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council), says it all, points out investment research firm Concept Capital in a client note out this morning:

$735 million in past-due and noncurrent construction and land development not related to 1-4 family residential loans
$100 million in past-due and noncurrent 1-4 family residential construction and land development loans
$160 million in past-due and noncurrent closed-end 1-4 family mortgages
$74 million in past-due and noncurrent multi-family loans
$112 million in past-due and noncurrent nonfarm, nonresidential commercial real estate loans
$26 million in past-due or noncurrent commercial and industriaI loans

As of year-end 2008, nearly 80 percent of Colonial's nonperforming assets were related to real estate construction. Here's what their loan portfolio looked like:

That's what you call being "house poor."

Alain Sherter

Alain Sherter covers business and economic affairs for CBSNews.com.

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