While the mortgage crisis has taken a toll on banks across the country, including in parts of Ohio, the West Virginia financial community says the impact here has been minimal at best.

At least two Ohio-based banks, including Huntington banks, which also has branches in Parkersburg and West Virginia, have been affected by the mortgage crisis. But the head of West Virginia's Bankers Association says its organizations haven't been hit by the burst of the housing bubble, because there wasn't a bubble to begin with.

"West Virginia typically doesn't go through the booms," said Association C.E.O. Joe Ellison, a former Parkersburg banker. "Therefore, we don't typically suffer through the bust, when that comes along."

A local appraiser says that, another thing to consider is that this area mostly doesn't have the larger, more expensive properties common elsewhere in the country.

"A $100,000 home probably isn't as affected as, say, a $400,000 home," says Russel Rice of Precision Appraisal Service. "So, whenever you talk about that, beware the statistics and trying to read too much into them."

Private brokerage firms were the ones hit hardest by the sub-prime lending problem. Local and state officials say banks tend to be more conservative in their mortgage lending.

"Bankers are saying, 'yeah, I've had a few foreclosures'," Ellison says. "But the economy plays a role in that, certainly."

"We do have some (foreclosures) here," said local realtor Cora Marshall. "But the percentages don't even compare to what's happening nationally."

Appraiser Rice says: "In West Virginia, there's only one recognized declining market, and that's around Martinsburg. The rest of West Virginia does what it does all the time; it just rides the wave. Values go up a little, values go down a little bit."

In a move brought on in part by the economy and the mortgage crisis, the Federal Reserve Wednesday announced officially it is cutting a key interest rate by a quarter-point.

But there have been indications that might be the last rate cut for a while, because of inflation concerns.