Technology

With short sales gaining in popularity, it comes as no surprise that two companies recently announced strategic partnerships with National Quick Sale, a short sale technology company based in Jacksonville, Florida. The company's two newest partners are REA Accelerated Marketing Group and Epic Real Estate Solutions.

As part of a coordinated plan to help as many homeowners as possible prevent foreclosure and stay in their homes, HOPE NOW, the industry-created alliance of mortgage servicers, investors, counselors, and other mortgage market participants, recently announced that it has expanded the HOPE LoanPort through its housing counselor partners in 25 states and more than 100 cities.

In an effort to improve its property search and map display, national real estate brokerage Zip Realty, Inc. has partnered with Maponics, LLC, a provider of neighborhood boundary data. ZipRealty, says the alliance will give prospective homebuyers better search results and local mapping data.

Santa, Ana California-based First American Document Solutions, a member of the First American Corporation and a single point of access to a large land records database, recently announced that it has enhanced its online title policy and document retrieval capabilities.

Valligent, a provider of property valuation and risk management solutions, released a new valuation suite Wednesday that the company says is aimed at ""ending the real estate industry's addiction to broker price opinions."" The company argues that BPOs have contributed to a ""crisis of confidence"" and notes that they are considered illegal in 23 states.

In an effort to provide mortgage market participants with information critical to their success, Mortgage Industry Advisory Corporation (MIAC), a New York-based provider of FAS 157 fair market valuations, mortgage risk hedging, and accounting solutions, has launched phase I of its new corporate Web site.

Interthinx, a national provider of proven risk mitigation and regulatory compliance tools, recently launched the Interthinx Conditioned Valuation Model (CVM) - a unique integration of automated valuation technology and analytics tempered by a professional property inspection.

San Diego-based MDA DataQuick, a division of MDA Lending Solutions and a provider of property data to real estate and mortgage professionals, recently announced that Burbank, California-based Lockheed Federal Credit Union (LFCU) has selected MDA DataQuick's collateral validation to help the credit union, which has $2.9 billion in assets, proactively identify and manage loan risk and set loan loss reserves.

In order to streamline communication between servicer clients and their investors, San Diego-based Mortgage Contracting Services (MCS), a nationwide property preservation and inspection services provider to the financial services industry, recently partnered with HomeTelos, a Dallas-based company that specializes in the development and support of Web-based solutions that support the management and marketing of real estate assets.

The new MLS real estate search engine recently launched by Cape Coral, Florida-based Askzenrealestate.com is creating a lot of hype. The company is best known for its real estate blog, which provides readers with information on the region's changing real estate market. Through the addition of its new search engine, the site's visitors can receive real-time, up-to-date MLS listings.