Status information for financial transactions

An electronic computing device, comprising:

• a processing unit;
• and
• system memory, the system memory including instructions which, when executed by the processing unit, cause the electronic computing device to:
• request, by a third party organization, status information regarding a financial transaction involving a mortgage, the request including an identifier for the third party organization and an identifier for the financial transaction;
• provide, by the third party organization, authentication by the identifier for the third party;
• allow an authorization level for the third party organization to be determined using the identifier for the third party organization;
• allow a data store to be queried using the identifier for the financial transaction to determine the status information for the financial transaction;
• allow any contingency information associated with the mortgage to be updated, the contingency information including a status of one or more contingent financial transactions, each of the one or more contingent financial transactions involving a sale of property;
• and
• receive the status information and the contingency information,
• wherein a granularity of the status information returned to the third party organization is dependent upon the authorization level for the third party organization, and wherein the status information includes one or more words, phrases or colors that summarize a status of one or more milestones for the financial transaction.

A computer-implemented method capable of obtaining status information for financial transactions, comprising:

• requesting, by a third party organization using an identifier, status information regarding a financial transaction;
• wherein the status information includes contingency information regarding the financial transaction;
• allowing the status information including the contingency information to be associated with the identifier for the third party organization;
• allowing a data store to be updated with the status information including the contingency information;
• and
• periodically receiving, by the third party organization, the status information including the contingency information after a query is made to the data store.