United Commercial Bank of San Francisco was the 120th bank closed this year by government regulators. The bank’s 63 U.S. branches were then taken over by East West Bank of Pasadena, Calif. Estimated cost to the FDIC: $1.4 billion.

First American CoreLogic sends out a monthly report about foreclosure activity for metro areas, including Bellingham (the Bellingham metro area is Whatcom County). Here is what they have for September:

Foreclosure Rate, September: 1.09 percent. Sept. 2008: 0.47 percent.

U.S. average, September 2009: 2.93 percent. Washington average: 1.71 percent

Percentage of Whatcom County homes that are more than 90 days delinquent on mortgage: 3.31 percent. Washington: 4.73 percent. U.S.: 7.27 percent.

For now, Whatcom County continues to be doing better than the state and national average.

In October there were 67 Whatcom County bankruptcy filings, according to the latest data from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court Western District office in Seattle. That’s down from 73 in September.

For the first 10 months of the year, there have been 674 local filings. That’s almost 100 more than all of 2008, when there 579 filings.

No. 118: Prosperan Bank of Oakdale, Minn., closed, taken over by Alerus Financial, Grand Forks, N.D. Estimated cost to the FDIC: $60.1 million.

No. 119: Gateway Bank of St. Louis closed, taken over by Central Bank of Kansas City. Estimated cost to the FDIC: $9.2 million.

Home Federal Savings of Detroit was closed by government regulators, then taken over by Libert Bank and Trust of New Orleans. Estimated cost to the FDIC: $5.4 million.

Here are some details about the grand opening celebration of CJ’s banquet room:

CJ’s Beach House Restaurant in Birch Bay has announced the grand opening of “CJ’s Party Room” Friday and Saturday November 6 & 7.  The banquet room has been updated to a beachside ‘bring the deck inside’ décor.  Live music every Friday and Saturday night, fun events scheduled throughout the month. 

Time for the weekly bank closures, with the first of the day being in Georgia. Details below. I’ll update with new posts if there are other bank failures today.

United Security Bank of Sparta Ga. was closed, then taken over by Ameris Bank of Moultrie, Ga. Estimated cost to the FDIC: $58 million.

The Seattle Times reported that Dick’s Sporting Goods will be opening in Puyallup next spring, making it the first store in Washington state for that company. Here is the link.

It didn’t say in the article, but it’ll be interesting to see how much of a push Dick’s makes in Washington (the company has also been opening stores in Oregon and California). There are plenty of empty Joe’s and Linens-N-Things buildings that they could easily move into.

It appears Tahiti Mi Tan salons at 102 S. Samish Way and 1155 E. Sunset Drive have shut down. A caller said the windows at the two facilities are covered. The phone is disconnected at Samish and no one is answering at Sunset. However, there are no notes announcing the closure.

The caller mentioned that she was out some money because she bought some package deals before the closure. Did this happen to you? If so and you want to talk about it, send me an e-mail (dave.gallagher@bellinghamherald.com) or give me a call at 715-2269.

The three banks with local offices that seem to have the most difficulties these days, Horizon Bank, Frontier Bank and Sterling Savings Bank, are also having difficulties with investors, but in different ways.

All three are trading around 52-week lows and are operating under cease-and-desist orders, but the movement has been different. Everett-based Frontier Bank was trading at 36 cents this morning, but has seen a steady decline for the past week. Bellingham-based Horizon Bank has been hovering around 53 cents, much like it has been for the past week. The only difference between those two, news-wise, is Frontier announced its latest quarterly results last week; Horizon is expected to release its results later this month.

Spokane-based Sterling Savings saw a big drop after getting hit with a cease-and-desist order last month, but is trading around 77 cents, up 15 cents from its 52-week low.

So, thoughts about what’s next for these banks?