(Save the date: RealShare New York comes to the Grand Hyatt, New York, NY, October 9.)

NEW YORK CITY-A total of eight July bank failures—five in the Southeast and three in the Midwest—come as no surprise to locally based Trepp, which reports that all of the banks were on its Trepp Watchlist.

That brings the to-date total for 2012 to 39 banks, and while disturbing it’s a great improvement over this time last year. According to Trepp, the total at this point last year was 61. In 2010, 108 banks had failed at this point in the year.

And while the slowing nature of the closures is encouraging, there are “still 190 banks at high risk of failure,” reports managing director Matt Anderson. The slowdown was attributed to both an actual uptick in performance but also to “more time being added to the clock” for ailing lending institutions.

The banks that bit the dust were: Jasper Banking Co., First Cherokee, Georgia Trust and Montgomery Bank & Trust (all in GA); Second Federal (IL); Heartland Bank (KS); Royal Palm Bank (FL); Glasgow Savings (MO).

According to Trepp: “Commercial real estate exposure was the main source of problem loans for the banks that failed, comprising $142.8 million (70.4%) of the total $202.8 million in nonperforming loans at the failed banks. Construction and land loans accounted for $84.7 million (41.8%), while commercial mortgages made up $58.1 million (28.6%) of the non-performing total.”