South Florida real estate needs a strong financial industry to support real estate development and investment in land and building projects - not only for all types of commercial projects (office buildings, hotels, airports, expansions, shopping centers, malls, etc.) but also for residential ones (condominium towers, townhome communities) and the infrastructure builds for both (roads and things). 

So how Florida banks are doing is important not just to those lenders and the financial interests here in Florida but also to those assorted industries that need their services - real estate is side by side with other kinds of banking clientele here.

So how are the Florida banks doing these days? 

Yesterday a bank analysis firm that ranks banks performance, Bauer Financial, Inc., issued its quarterly report where U.S. banks and credit unions are graded by the experts on a zero star (poor) to five star (excellent) scale.  The ratings are then placed on the web for review at no cost to anyone.

Go here to read the Bauer press release on the latest report. Go here to search for a particular bank's rating in the latest Bauer Financial report. To get the report's coverage of the entire state, you must purchase that statewide Florida report for $55.00. 

Here are a few sample results for Miami-area banks that got FIVE STARS:

• Apollo Bank
• City National Bank of Florida
• Comerica Bank
• Desjardins Bank NA (Hallandale)
• Espirito Bank
• Executive National Bank
• Iberiabank
• Intercontinental Bank
• Palm Beach Community Bank
• Sabadell United Bank
• TotalBank

This isn't an exhaustive list -- there are more Five Star banks in the Miami area that aren't included on this list.

There are also some banks that are so low in performance that they received ZERO stars.  Go read the South Florida Business Journal article on this new report for details on these banks and what this may mean to their long term. 

What about Bank of America some may ask? 

Bank of America is a huge financial prescence here in Florida and it's had it share of hits, not including the recent Freddie Mac mortgage buy-back negotiations which hit Bank of America pretty hard what with its famous (infamous?) Countrywide Financial purchase. 

Well, Bauer upgraded Bank of America in this latest report:  BofAm isn't getting a Five Star rating now, but it's improving - and bankers at Bank of America are hopefully not too displeased that this quarter, Bauer is giving them 3.5 stars.