My thoughts on NACA (summarized in only 2,236 words!)
I have lived in my home for one year now. I have been dealing with this home for about 2 years. Back in December of 2009 my wife suggested we check out NACA. I looked at it and although it boasted great numbers and results, it looked like a program for poor people and often those programs are giant rip offs. Now my wife was at the time working for Bank of America in the Loss Mitigation department as a NACA specialist. Her entire job was working with NACA and those people that NACA was trying to keep from losing their houses. She really insisted that we give them a try as it was an easy way to get a house and save a lot of money in the process.
I registered for their âworkshopâ and attended on 12/5/2009. Now this right here was crazy. Looking around the room I could tell you the 6 people out of the 50 in attendance that would complete this program and be able to afford a house. The rest were looking for some sort of an easy hand out. We spent 4 hours learning about or rather being brainwashed about how great NACA was. We even watched a propaganda video that was reminiscent of a Sunday morning gospel show on BET. I left this workshop somewhat upbeat and positive about the program as they brought in people that had been successful with the process and they answered my semi hard questions in a positive manner. The one hold back that was somewhat clear is that this process takes time and a real commitment to make sure that you are continually sending them documents. John Anderson the NACA counselor that hosted the workshop and would eventually become our mortgage counselor seemed very smart and all around like he would be good to work with.
We called about 30 times the following week to try and schedule an appointment to follow up from the workshop. The phone was never once answered nor was there a machine to take a message. This was highly discouraging but still we persisted. When I did finally get through I realized the issue. There are only 2-3 people in the office and with the housing crisis in America they have a workload that would take 10 people. Still, this is the organizations issue and not mine. We scheduled an appointment and it was to be 45 days in the future as they were booked solid. When that date came around I unfortunately had to cancel as I had a very important doctors appointment I had to attend. (My wife found out she was pregnant). This pushed our intake session out to mid March.
At our intake session we were informed that our credit was acceptable (a couple issues that needed to be resolved which took no more than a letter) however since we were only paying $500 for rent at the time we would have to document 3 months of savings and provide all of our tax information, pay stubs, bank account info etc⌠This was no big deal. I went home and got to work and complied all of the necessary documentation. Our next meeting from that date was scheduled for June 3rd.
At the June 3rd session we were âpre qualifiedâ this means that we were able to meet their minimum requirements and would be moving forward in the process. This meeting was nothing more than reviewing the task list that they assigned us and making sure that it was all complete. This is the step that most people fall off at. Most people go into NACA running and fail to complete the tasks that are required to finish the program. I am pretty sure that they pre qualify just about everyone and let people weed themselves out by not keeping up on the documentation. As of this meeting we were 90% done with our checklist and all we had to keep doing was saving money and sending in bank statements and pay stubs. I sent this material in every other week / monthly as I received it. We had no problems up to this point and I was speaking highly of and recommending NACA to anyone who was looking for a mortgage (just search NACA on the board and you can confirm this and the dates)
Well a little time passed and after a few minor snags like Bank of America not confirming my wifeâs employment in a timely manner we finally moved along. I was on a fishing trip in the remote wilderness of Quebec and once we flew out of the woods and got back into cell coverage I had a voicemail from my wife jubilated that she had a meeting with John while I was away and everything was good to go. We could start shopping for a home as soon as I returned.
When I got back to buffalo we scheduled a final appointment with John and were assigned a realtor. This is where things started to unravel. I told her quite specifically where I wanted to look and what I wanted to see. She printed a MLS sheet quite outside my specs and emailed it to me. I replied with a list of address and we went from there. I tried several times to meet with her, and when I called her âofficeâ number some guy answered quite rudely and told me that she was not home. Great, is this person actually a realtor or just some jackass parading around as one. I immediately called NACA and asked to be assigned a new realtor. Instead they called her and told her that I was complaining about her. Great, now she will be real helpful! Contrary to what I assumed would happen, she gave me her cell phone number and became much more responsive. She must not want to lose the NACA business. Well, I found a house about a day later that had just been listed that day. We went to look at it and I said that I wanted to place an offer. She was completely useless here. I asked her what we should consider for an offer she said that I should do what I feel best. No bitch, you are a realtor. Go look up the comps and help me to achieve a reasonable number for this house! Well I did it myself and my offer was accepted. I probably overpaid but whatever the deal was inked. This contract was signed on 10/4/2010 (you can see that we are nearing a year for this process)
We had our inspection on 10/8 and the realtor actually helped us a bit on this by suggesting an inspector that would âwork with meâ. If the inspector fails anything, NACA has a policy that it has to be repaired prior to closing and our sellers were not about to repair anything as the move was due to divorce and they just wanted to get out. I happen to be very handy and mechanically inclined so my wallet made sure that the inspection report was clean and I had a small list of things on scrap paper that could use some attention.
We amended the contract to pay for the issues and by 10/14 my lawyer (again hired by NACA) had approved the contract. We figured for sure that we would be in this house in no time. Even further to this point we signed the contract with an addendum listing the closing date as 10 days from contract vs. the 50 that was initially listed. I was again feeling good about the process. Only minor glitches thus far that I was able to re-steer with a phone call or an email. Ya hoo, the wife is due 12/30 and I will be in the house by November. Plenty of time to get it all set!! WRONG!
Fast forward to 11/10. I am starting to get nervous. We finished this deal on 10/18/11 and submitted everything to the bank for underwriting. By the terms of the initial contract I should have been moved in by now but we had to extend it. I emailed John asking what was going on, no response. I then called the office and was told by Gloria who answers the phone to be patient it was still in the works. This back and forth continued for a week or so which included me calling several people in higher positions and continually receiving push back. Finally someone was able to push the proper button and the bank accepted the contract on December 3rd, but found an issue with the title my attorney sent over. This pushed us back to December 8th. From that date it is to be 3 days to close. Nope yet again. I asked what our status was on 12/13 and was told that the underwriter couldnât find the correct title documents that John emailed her and that he left early that day so he would follow up the following day. I responded to John and the regional director as I am now getting more furious at this process âThanks for the update. We spoke to Gloria and she informed us that you were out ill. Hope you are feeling better. I also hope that Citi gets their shit together. It has now been 7 full days, 5 full working days since all documents were in their hands. Do you expect that they will be able to provide an answer for us today? I have a horrible feeling that if this somehow gets dragged into next week that with the holidays we are going to be looking into next year.â
This email was sent on 12/14 at 8:45AM. I followed up at 1:53 after receiving no response. I was then told that they now needed to see an updated Survey. We had the survey updated weeks ago and It was never sent to them WTF NACA! So John told me that he would email it to his boss who is allowed to contact the underwriter directly as he was not. (It like most of my emails was long so I am paraphrasing, I can provide a copy of the transcript if anyone needs it for some reason). I thanked him for his help yet again and informed him that at this point my wife could go into labor any day now and that we needed to get this done with. Moving to the next day 12/15 at 10am His response came in that we were still 3 days from closing as it was not a good idea to overnight the documents as he has had issues in the past (I overnight documents all the god damn time!). Also that there was a new addendum to the contract that now had to be signed and approved. Mind you our contract had expired fucking weeks ago because everyone and their brother dragged their feet on this process that should have taken 10 days by contract or 50 by the initial contract with the state MAX listed on it. Lastly it was not even 10 am. The close could be moved up if everything was requested before noon. Hit the button on your fucking computer, you have two hours to do it.
So closing. They didnât hit the button so it was scheduled for 12/22 instead of 12/21. I was not able to pry the final figure from either the attorney or NACA for my cashiers check due at closing. I had to rush to the bank that morning to get a check. We get to closing and the attorney says âI messed up the numbers, you really need $1000 moreâ Fuck great. Luckily I had the money and just gave him cash so that he could draft a check from his law firm to cover the difference. We signed all of the papers at 11am and since the sellers attorney failed to show up we had to go to the clerks office to get keys. Well that was a debacle of its own with their attorney and we didnât get the keys until 4:40 pm.
Thanks to everyone dragging their feet I worked day and night from that point until my child was born and I still didnât finish the house. I ended up giving my inlaws a wad of cash and sent the furniture shopping for me. Luckily they have good taste.
So after all of that, would I deal with NACA again. Maybe. They had their ups and downs, but in the end I do have a mortgage at 2.5% interest and I paid almost nothing in closing costs (I dropped about 5K at close but I also bought down the interest rate from 4.25%) My next house will be appraised in the 400K range so NACA is not even an option but I guess that as hard as the process was and as much frustration as it caused they are really providing a decent service. They are opening doors for people that wouldnât normally qualify for a conventional mortgage. I would have qualified for a conventional mortgage so all I gained here was the savings in closing costs. The savings for me were neglected by the amount of my time and energy that were invested in this process.