2024 was a rough year for Seattle-based HomeStreet Bank. 

The institution reported a net loss of $123.3 million for the fourth quarter, compared to $7.3 million for the quarter a year ago. That brought HomeStreet’s net losses for the year to $144.3 million, and it also reported its total deposits declined by $33 million. It’s the fifth consecutive quarter of losses for the bank. 

“Due to our cumulative losses over the last three years, accounting rules require us to provide a valuation allowance for the balance of our deferred tax assets, which include the deferred tax benefit of unrealized losses in our available for sale securities portfolio,” said Mark Mason, the bank’s chairman, president and CEO, in its earning report. “Accordingly, in the fourth quarter of 2024, we recorded a $53 million deferred tax allowance which was recorded as an income tax expense. 

The bank sold nearly $1 billion in multifamily real estate loans at the end of December in a bid to return to profitability. The effort was driven by its failed merger with FirstSun Capital Bancorp, which the institutions called off after regulators halted it. 

“This loan sale repositioned our balance sheet and accelerated our return to profitability which we expect to occur in the first half of 2025,” Mason said. 

HomeStreet previously operated a branch in the Tri-Cities. In May 2022, it sold that branch and four others in Eastern Washington to Bank of Idaho, which will be acquired by Wheatland Bank’s holding company, Glacier Bancorp Inc., later this year.