The feeling is not mutual when the bank takes stock of itself.

• Position: REGIONALREPORT Western

In October, Asheville Savings Bank converted from a mutual association owned by its members to a financial institution owned by stockholders, selling more than $55 million of shares through subscription and a community offering. Though the money will help it meet new capital requirements set by the Dodd-Frank Act, the transition for some depositors was akin to handing over the keys to Bailey Bros. Building and Loan to Mr. Potter.

Raising that kind of money is difficult to do through organic earnings, says Lucy Reuben, a professor at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. Asheville Savings--founded in 1936 and now part of new, Nasdaq-traded ASB Bancorp Inc.--isn't operating under a regulatory consent order, but it lost $9.4 million last year after writing off $22.4 million of bad loans. Barring any unforeseen events, the cash infusion should enable it to weather western North Carolina's dire real-estate market, something two other local banks--the only ones in the state regulators shuttered this year--didn't do.

Bank of Asheville closed in January, and Blue Ridge Savings Bank Inc., owned by former U.S. Rep. Charles Taylor, failed in October. Their presidents faced fraud and money-laundering charges, but what sank them were bad real-estate loans. Bank of Asheville advanced millions to developments that didn't develop, and Blue Ridge had the highest percentage of nonper-forming loans (39.6%) of any Tar Heel bank at the end of 2010. "The only land more overvalued than mountain property in North Carolina is beachfront/'says Timothy Martin, president of Duluth, Ga.-based BankSys...