by Calculated Risk on 4/15/2008 10:14:00 AM

Greg Morcroft at MarketWatch provides an overview of regional bank results: Bad loans paint grim landscape for regional banks

Several of the nation's major regional banks, from the Deep South through the Midwest, said on Tuesday that plummeting housing prices and other financial strains on borrowers are forcing large loan write-offs and provisions for bad loans, undermining quarterly profits.
...
They also said they expect the pain to continue through 2008.

Here are a couple of examples. From Regions Financial Corp in Alabama:

Net loan charge-offs rose to $125.8 million, or an annualized 0.53% of average net loans, in the first quarter of 2008, up from $107.5 million, or an annualized 0.45%, in the prior quarter.

"The linked-quarter increase was primarily driven by the previously discussed residential homebuilder portfolio and the company's home equity portfolio, both of which are closely tied to the housing market slowdown," Regions said.

And from U.S. Bancrop:

In Minnesota, U.S. Bancorp saw quarterly loan-loss provisions soar to $485 million from $177 million.

"Declining home prices in many of our markets, in addition to stress in the residential home building and mortgage-related industries, are expected to continue through the balance of the year," the company said.

The individual bank losses might not grab the headlines (like the billions in losses at the large investment banks), but the losses at the regional banks are starting to grow. The regional banks will probably be hit hard later this year by defaults on construction & development (C&D) loans and commercial real estate (CRE) loans.