Heart Financial Services created a dedicated short sale division to help the Northbrook, Ill.-based specialty servicer’s clients manage the overflow of distressed borrower requests for short sales. Heart specializes in loss mitigation efforts during late-stage collections and early stage foreclosures. The new short sale division will use a number of technology products used to calculate whether a borrower is eligible for a short sale, field consumer inquiries and guide consumers through the creation of a complete financial and hardship package. “We originally resisted requests from clients to engage in short sale work because I believed the short sale process was broken and our company could not significantly address the underlying challenges,” said Heart president and CEO Gerald Alt. “We’ve come to appreciate the need of the industry and consumers to have a prompt decision, whether short sales are approved or not. By leveraging our experience in handling well over 1,000,000 borrower contacts in traditional loss mitigation, we can free up vital mortgage servicing and investor resources that can be better spent on approving these sales,” he added. Write to Austin Kilgore.