Bankers don’t all have a bright outlook for 2011, but they’re at least feeling happier about it than other Banker & Tradesman readers, according to a recent survey.

Financial professionals in Massachusetts and Connecticut largely anticipate an improved economy and more single-family mortgage transactions this year, and nearly 70 percent predicted an expansion of business in their own companies.

But they weren’t willing to predict improvements in most other types of loan transactions, including multifamily, condo or business lending, and they’re still nervous about the nation’s continued unemployment levels.

“It’s very much a mixed bag,” said Robert Gaughen, CEO and president of the Hingham Institution for Savings. If they aren’t burdened with credit problems, individual community banks certainly can thrive in an environment where the public favors local banks over giant multinationals. But no one foresees a break in the dismal unemployment situation, he added, and that problem, coupled with a troubled economy and staggering national deficit, will hold the industry back from real progress.

“The idea of a jobless recovery, that’s difficult to call a recovery in my book,” Gaughen said.

Cautious Optimism

A December Banker & Tradesman reader survey, conducted in conjunction with Sudbury-based Bannon & Co., polled readers in Massachusetts and Connecticut, who mostly work in areas of finance, real estate and development. An analysis shows that, among the respondents, bankers remain more optimistic across more economic categories than their peers in other industries.

Compared to last year’s similar survey on readers’ outlook for 2010, bankers sense a stabilization in some areas, but worry that loans for condos and multifamily housing will stagnate, showing no improvement over 2010’s numbers.

Almost 70 percent of bankers predicted an improved economy in 2011. That’s a more upbeat showing than last year – for bankers, anyway – when only 57 percent of bankers foresaw improvement. Still, 53 percent of everyone else predicted improvement last year, significantly more than 44 percent this time around.

But when it comes to employment, only 32 percent of bankers were willing to bet on better numbers, nearly in line with 34 percent of their non-banking peers.

Sushil Tuli, president of Arlington-based LeaderBank, is one of the optimistic ones. Consumers and businesses are gaining confidence, he said, noting that merchants reported strong sales during the holiday season.

He’s also seen it in the buzz at Leader Bank, as more borrowers talk about having to fight for homes they want as homebuying competition heats up – a good sign for the housing market.

The bank is also starting to get phone calls from developers talking about starting construction projects. That never happened last year at this time, he said, and it indicates Massachusetts should see the return of homebuilding in the spring.

Tuli’s opinion on home lending puts him with the 47 percent of banking respondents who believe home sales will improve in 2011, as opposed to only 39 percent of other respondents. Last year’s survey showed a more bullish attitude from both sides, with a whopping 72 percent of bankers predicting stronger home sales, compared to 52 percent of other respondents.

But Tuli’s optimism about construction is less widely held. Only 21 percent of bankers thought single-family home construction would improve. But that’s strong compared to construction for retail, office or multifamily developments, which had only single-digit percentages of readers predicting improvements. In all those categories, about half predicted construction would stay pretty much the same as in 2010, with up to 44 percent predicting a downturn.

Going Social

Timothy Telman, president and CEO of the Bank of Cape Cod, a commercial bank in Hyannis, echoed that cautiousness. Business is stable and the 4-year-old bank is already profitable, but overall, the problem has long been a lack of qualified borrowers. The bank would be thrilled to do more lending, he said, but there simply aren’t enough good deals out there.

Telman’s views about the availability of stable borrowers illustrates a notable disagreement between bankers and non-banking respondents. While nearly all bankers believed small business loans and single-family mortgages would be available at reasonable terms, non-banking respondents tended to be more skeptical, with nearly half claiming they didn’t think business loans were readily available.

In other areas of the survey, bankers also waxed enthusiastic about the possibilities inherent in social media, with 60 percent saying they expected it to have tangible payoffs in the future, though 20 percent called it a waste of time. Also, compared to last year, bankers seem more convinced they should be investing in mobile banking, with 23 percent saying it should be a major area of emphasis for community institutions. Last year, that number was just 16 percent.

Telman said Bank of Cape Cod has moved into mobile banking, in addition to other technology investments, and believes that social media channels do provide an opportunity for banks to gain more customers. But for smaller banks with limited budgets, it isn’t easy to dedicate the resources to constantly update Twitter feeds or Facebook pages.

“If you get in it, you want to be able to maintain it,” he said. “And a lot of the community banks like myself, we’re just not there yet … we do see some merit in those spaces, but it’s a matter of having the resources to play in those spaces.”