Another Failed Bank
Thursday, September 25th, 2008Ameribank of Northfork WV bit the dust on September 19. This is the 12th community bank that went down for the count this year. Five have tanked since August 1 alone.
This is unfortunately the fault of a regulatory environment that did little to stop predatory lending practices targeting subprime borrowers.
My world, the commercial world, has been dragged down simply by association. There is little-to-no non-recourse debt financing available to fund commercial real estate acquisitions, despite sound market fundamentals in my area. The volume of CMBS loan originations — the primary source of non-recourse debt up until 2008 — is down 90% over last year.
