Troubled assets persist on the balance sheets of many of Northern Colorado's local banks, but a handful of community banks that do business here have chipped away at the problem.

Lakewood-based FirstBank, for one, cut the value of its real estate loans that ended up in default by nearly half between late 2010 and late 2011. It reduced the dollar amount of those loans from $14.7 million to $8.7 million, according to the bank's fourth-quarter balance sheet.

Better yet, troubled real estate loans carried by FirstBank in Larimer and Weld counties were reduced to zero by the fourth quarter, according to Pat Brady, president of FirstBank Northern Colorado.

Very little of those loans was from commercial property, Brady said, and the bank has been working with homeowners to attempt to keep them in their homes by making use of various loan forgiveness options.

"For the most part, borrowers want to pay their bills," Brady said. "They just might be in a bad spot after everything that has happened."

The situation has been slightly different for Great Western Bank, which acquired the assets of TierOne Bank of Lincoln, Neb., in June 2010, after TierOne was declared insolvent by regulators.