The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) is working on a new way to sell bank-owned real estate assets as more banks fail due to distressed commercial real estate loans, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The FDIC, which during the downturn typically lined up buyers to take over assets such as loans, deposits and branches when a lending institution collapsed, is paying more attention to the private sector.

Now, instead of selling troubled property loans to investors in partnerships with the agency, it has decided to sell some of the loans as commercial mortgage-backed securities, or CMBS.

Citing unidentified sources, the newspaper said the FDIC is looking for banks to underwrite its first CMBS deal, which is expected to be backed by at least $500 million of performing commercial mortgages and may be launched by the end of the year.

The FDIC has about $34 billion in assets, including those associated with real estate, held by failed banks that are available for sale.