Technology

Boasting offshoring credentials for the mortgage industry going back to 2000, Global Realty Outsourcing, Blackheath Financial, and Zenta (formerly H-Cube) have announced that they are uniting under the Zenta brand to offer business process outsourcing and knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) services to the real estate and financial services industries.According to the announcement, the combined company has 5,000 employees in six locations across three continents, with many employees holding MBA degrees and chartered accountant certifications. In an earlier announcement, American Capital Strategies Ltd. said it invested $17 million in H-Cube LLC to support the acquisition of Blackheath Financial, which provides outsourced real estate analysis and consulting services to commercial mortgage-backed securities underwriters and investors. Zenta can be found on the Web at http://www.zenta.com.

After joining the Mortgage Bankers Association and starting the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization over seven years ago, Gabe Minton is stepping down to assume the role of chief strategy officer at Mortgage Cadence, a Denver-based enterprise lending solution company.A source close to the situation confirmed that Harry Gardner will assume Mr. Minton's responsibilities at the MBA and that Dan Szparaga, who runs the commercial portion of MISMO, will now oversee the residential portion as well. Both appointments are interim, but are expected to become permanent. Mr. Minton told MortgageWire that he will miss the MBA and running MISMO, but looks forward to moving on to Mortgage Cadence and continuing to participate in MISMO as a member. "I honestly couldn't think of a better fit for me than Mortgage Cadence," he said. The company can be found on the Web at http://www.mortgagecadence.com.

Home values declined slightly on a year-over-year basis for the second consecutive quarter in the first quarter of 2007, though the Pacific Northwest is bucking the trend, according to Zillow.com, an online real estate community based in Seattle.Zillow's quarterly national home value report, which is also released in 46 metropolitan areas, found that home values fell 1.01% in the first quarter and were 0.83% lower than in the first quarter of 2006. "While numerous cities around the nation are showing actual year-over-year declines in home values, the Pacific Northwest is largely bucking that trend and, in fact, is showing double-digit appreciation in some areas," said Stan Humphries, Zillow's vice president of data and analytics. "Four of the top five highest-appreciating metropolitan areas are located in Washington state or Oregon. Conversely, the two areas with the most depreciation are on the Gulf Coast of Florida, both with double-digit depreciation." Zillow can be found online at http://www.zillow.com.

Cincinnati-based eLynx has formed a strategic partnership with MortgageDocs, a nationwide mobile notary and attorney service provider, to further facilitate the use of hybrid electronic mortgage practices.Through eLynx's automated package delivery application, lenders can electronically submit documents to MortgageDocs, which then manages the signing and notarization process. On average, a notary is assigned to an individual borrower within 30 minutes of receipt, and sometimes as quickly as one minute in highly populated locations, the companies said. The network also provides real-time performance history statistics. The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.elynx.com and http://www.mortgagedocs.com.

Rapid Reporting, Fort Worth, Texas, has announced a partnership with Calyx Software, a broker loan origination vendor based in San Jose, Calif., to help brokers detect fraud earlier in the process.Rapid Reporting said it will offer mortgage fraud detection capabilities to users of Calyx's core group of products and services, including the company's flagship loan origination application, Calyx Point. As part of the agreement, Calyx Software users will be able to interface to Rapid Reporting's Web-based IncomeChek and DirectChek tools. Through established relationships with both the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration, Rapid Reporting enables users to detect and reveal potential mortgage fraud associated with deceptive income and identity information, the company said. Rapid Reporting can be found on the Web at http://www.rapidreporting.com.

Charlotte, N.C.-based Wachovia is one of the lenders drawing high marks for its just-launched campaign to offer customers the option of closing a mortgage loan refinancing online without ever leaving their home or office.Bank customers who go to the company's website and click on "mortgage" are presented with a banner advertisement inviting them to close a loan "from any location with an Internet connection." The online service is powered by ClosingStream, a product of Fidelity National Information Services' LSI. Early indications show a third of Wachovia's refinancing and home equity borrowers choosing the e-closing option over the traditional closing process. To date, Fidelity claims 20,000 e-closings via ClosingStream, which its LSI unit touts as the first viable Web-based closing solution to be offered nationwide. Wachovia can be found online at http://www.wachovia.com.

After running origination vendor Del Mar Database, San Diego, for several years, the company's president, John Walsh, has decided to leave the company.Fiserv Lending Solutions recently acquired Del Mar and kept Mr. Walsh on as president. "Simply, the earn-out on the deal expired," Mr. Walsh told MortgageWire. "It was time for me to cut the umbilical cord. Del Mar is, and will continue to be, a very successful company, I have no doubt. I consider myself an entrepreneur, and it was the right time for me to move on." Mr. Walsh said he has no immediate plans. He told MW that Fiserv is in the process of finding a successor. Del Mar, which specializes in providing technology to small and medium-size lenders, can be found on the Web at http://www.delmardb.com.

The Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization and its Credit Reporting Workgroup have announced recommendations regarding the use of the MISMO standard for reporting reissues of credit reports to credit repositories.The MISMO Credit Reporting standard allows companies, credit bureaus, and credit repositories to exchange data regarding a borrower's credit information, the organization said. The document "will provide guidance on how to better use this standard in light of a recent change in the federal Fair Credit Report Act," said MISMO, a not-for-profit subsidiary of the Mortgage Bankers Association. Gabe Minton, executive vice president of MISMO and the MBA's vice president of industry technology, noted that credit data repositories collect and store credit data, while credit bureaus create the credit report for the lender. "This newly released document discusses how the existing MISMO Credit Request transaction format can be used to provide the information needed by credit bureaus to report additional end-users to the repositories," Mr. Minton said. MISMO can be found online at http://www.mismo.org.

Genworth Financial Inc., Raleigh, N.C., has announced the introduction of a new and interactive website designed to educate users about mortgage insurance.Genworth said SmarterMI.com features talking tour guides, video testimonials, and animated tutorials to help lenders and real estate professionals stay ahead of trends, learn from their peers, and improve their sales process. Online "webinars" are available free of charge to professionals who want to learn more about mortgage insurance, as well as easy-to-use calculators. "Our new website is a one-stop resource that explains the available alternatives and makes cost comparisons easy," said Kevin Schneider, president of Genworth's U.S. Mortgage Insurance business. "There are safe, secure mortgage options for first-time and low-downpayment buyers, and we want people to know about them." The new website can be found online at http://www.smartermi.com.

Lead-management specialist Kaleidico has reported a tripling of website traffic since the beta launch of a new Lead Marketwatch widget on its homepage that ranks lead providers in order of their conversion of leads to loan applications.The data reflect the current weekly moving average of icoSales client results. A Kaleidico representative said lenders and lead providers alike are using the site to gauge the effectiveness of mortgage lead campaigns. At MortgageWire's deadline, the widget -- which reflects the total of all leads in the icoSales system -- showed LendingTree achieving a 10.53% conversion rate with its long form, followed by Loan Web at 6.67%. Kaleidico says it integrates with every lead provider "that we determine is a viable entity," with the requirement that a provider must tally at least 100 leads in the week recorded. The company can be found online at http://www.kaleidico.com.