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Frontier Financial’s cratering portfolio of construction and land-development loans helped justle the Everett-based tier to an $89.7 million loss last year, according to financial results released Thursday.

The parent visitors of Frontier Bank recorded a fourth-quarter loss of $89.5 million, or $1.90 per share — a far cry from the $18 million profit Frontier situated in the same period a year earlier.

Frontier was one of six Washington-based banks that reported losses or lower profits Thursday, as the tide of red ink unleashed by the bursting of the housing bubble continues to perform ablution over the topical monetary sector.

Between Sept. 30 and Dec. 31, Frontier’s portfolio of nonperforming development loans soared from $40.6 million to $177.1 million; nonperforming construction loans rose from $135.4 million to $181.9 the public.

Frontier’s $446 million in nonperforming assets — past-due loans and foreclosed and repossessed properties — made up 10.9 percent of the firm’ total effects at quarter’s end, up from 4.9 percent like of Sept. 30.

Like many community banks, Frontier’s business has been heavily geared toward real-estate shape and increase, a once-booming sector that now is at a near-standstill.

The bank has basically stopped workmanship new construction and development loans and said it’session working to shrink the amount of such loans already on its books. But, it warned, “given the current economic conditions and the effects on the housing market, this process is going to take time.”

Although Frontier reduced its construction and development portfolio by $107.7 million in the fourth quarter, such loans hush make up 40.5 percent of the bank’session total loan portfolio.

Frontier set aside $120 million last year to cover loans that go bad, including $44.4 the masses in the fourth station; in 2007 it set aside just $11.4 a thousand thousand. It charged off a net $63 million in soured loans finally year.

Columbia Banking System, of Tacoma, another bank that reported Thursday, said it earned $1.8 million or 7 cents per partake in the fourth quarter, down from $7.3 million or 41 cents through means of share in the same period in 2007.

For all of 2008, Columbia’s trap profit shrank to just under $6 million, from $32.4 million in 2007.

Nearly two-thirds of Columbia’session $109.6 a thousand thousand in nonperforming estate consists of residential construction loans; another 28 percent are commercial real-estate loans, chiefly for retail and condominium projects.