Two more community banks – in New Jersey and Utah – have buckled under the pressure of the nation’s economic crisis, bringing the total number of failed institutions for the year to 32.

Seventy percent of Realtors are interested in using a one-stop online shopping source for real estate closing services, according to a National Association of Realtors (NAR) survey of nearly 2,000 Realtors.

Federal regulators have told Bank of America that it needs to raise $33.9 billion in cash to satisfy the requirements of the financial stress test administered by officials, according to multiple media reports citing people familiar with the matter.

Lenders One Mortgage Cooperative, a national alliance of mortgage bankers, announced Tuesday that one of its members – Iowa-based Dubuque Bank & Trust (DB&T) – was the first institution in the country to sell a Refi Plus loan to Fannie Mae under the administration’s Home Affordable Refinance Program.

Banks continued to tighten lending standards during the first quarter of the year, according to the Federal Reserve’s senior loan officer survey published on Monday. The central bank’s first quarter lending review showed that 50 percent of U.

The housing outlook, based on pending home sales, improved with many first-time buyers taking advantage of near record-high housing affordability conditions, according to the latest report released by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) on Monday.

The Ford Foundation has committed $50 million to a new nonprofit venture to help municipalities purchase banks’ foreclosed homes. According to the Wall Street Journal, the investment is one of the largest made by a foundation to help alleviate the effects of the housing crisis.

Regulators were supposed to release the findings of their stress tests on the nation’s largest lenders today, May 4, but the Federal Reserve is postponing the public announcement until later this week, presumably Thursday.

Mortgage banker and servicer Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co. filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. District Court of Delaware on Friday. Accredited was considered to be one of the last big subprime lenders standing.

The FDIC created a bridge bank to take over the operations of Silverton Bank, National Association in Atlanta, Georgia, after it was closed on Friday by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).