Would I Do This Again?

The question that I keep getting is: "Would you do this again?"

My answer; "Absolutely!"

If you would have asked me that during the process, I can't say that I would have said absolutely. Actually, I can almost be certain I would have said the opposite. There were days that I wanted to give up, days that I wanted to drive to the NACA office and sit in the parking lot until something got done, etc. But, it has paid off. We are now the proud owners of a beautiful (excuse me for being biased!) home with an interest rate of 0.25%--yes, POINT TWO FIVE PERCENT! We purchased our home for $175,000 and our monthly mortgage, insurance and everything included, is $703. That is FIXED for 30 years. We could not be happier. For any of you interested in the NACA program, it will work for you if you make it. It is long, stressful, discouraging at times, encouraging at other times and the list could go on. Every emotion you can feel would be felt throughout the program. One thing that stands above all is that you CAN purchase a home! If you are willing to run the miles, they will run them with you. They might not run as quick as you, but they will be there with you. Best of luck to all of you!

CLOSING!!!

We finally closed on our new home on Thursday, June 25th, 2009! Closing went smoothly and we could not be any happier. Now I can say that this was the longest, most stressful process I have ever been through, but worth every headache. We're finally in our first home and it's absolutely beautiful!

End of another week.....still in the apartment.

So, yeah the title says it all. I did receive an approval from Bank of America yesterday, which was super exciting. I was pumped yesterday because NACA told us that we were shooting to close on Monday, June 22nd. That would have been music to my ears and made my entire week, BUT I received notification today that the lender is re-reviewing our loan and Monday is no longer the projected closing date. I am guardedly optimistic that we still will be able to close next week. Come on readers, keep us in your prayers! I don't think I can handle anymore of this!

Bank app done.......

We did our bank application on June 4th. Here we sit at June 12th....our "projected" close date is June 15th. Looks like that will come and go. Supposedly, we should have heard something back from the bank this past Tuesday, June 9th. As you can probably guess, we heard nothing. NOTHING! On Thursday, we were told that the attorney said it would take longer because we are out of the county. Duh. They've been working with us for how long now? Ya think they would have filled the genius in on the fact that we aren't right around the corner from him. I called the attorney (aka: genius) today and left a message and of course, he is affiliated with NACA, so I did not receive a phone call back. Need I say that I am fed up with this? Nah, you probably already knew that. Maybe we will hear something next week?

Kinda Fishy...

So, after I called and spoke with the Operations Manager at the Corporate level of NACA, the glitch as mysteriously been fixed. The glitch that he could not find is now gone. Sounds a bit fishy on the Charlotte office's end to me. Was there really a glitch or were they just putting me off? Nevertheless, the glitch is gone and we should have our bank application done this week. Moving along.......I can only hope! :-)

Nothing Still?

I called to check on our file status today and the office manager said that there are no changes and that I should call back at the end of the week. Are you serious? The end of the week? I was thinking she would have told me the end of the day, but not the end of the week! I obtained the phone number to corporate and escalated it a bit further. The gentleman I spoke with does not see the glitch at all, but is looking into why it is taking so long. I appreciate it, alot. About 30 minutes after speaking with him, I receive an email from our counselor saying we need to pay another $10 credit report fee. This is getting so old. Another credit report fee because they are dragging their feet with some mysterious glitch. Oh well, it's paid now. Hopefully it will not be too much longer. I am also going to ask what rate we get. The rate we should have received or the rate that it is today?

IRATE

Our file is still messed up and supposedly has been escalated to the office manager. I called today and the office manager is OFF for the day. What kind of craziness is this? I am irate. The rate has gone from 4.3% to 4.875% since this has happened. Nobody can answer any of my questions. Absolutely ridiculous. I'm wondering if we would be better off going to the bank and getting a less expensive house. This stress is getting old and I'm wondering if it is worth it.

Feeling let down

I called today to check on our status and of course, they are not working today. Someone named Dorothy answered the phone (the same lady that was supposed to help me while Monica was away on vacation last week and never responded to any of my emails) and told me that she could not help me either. My goodness, all I need to know is whether a glitch can be fixed or not. Is that so difficult? Obviously it is because she refused to help me. It would have taken less than 3 mintues to look at the computer screen. So, here we are 6 days away from our lease being over and we have no plan of action. It has been SIX (6) weeks since we signed the contract with Eastwood on the house and yet, we have made little progress. I'm sure they can understand why I am feeling let down and dissapointed in their "service".

This stinks.......

Well, I'm late posting.....but, we went to do our bank application on May 7, 2009. Everything was fine, but there was a glitch in the system that showed us approved for less than what we really were approved for. They also could not get credit access to answer that night. For 2 weeks now, the glitch has remained. What gives people, what gives? Seriously. This is OLD. Our lease is up in 9 days. Things aren't looking to great......

Whooooppppeeeee!!!!!!!

Monica emailed today and said that we are APPROVED! Underwriting has approved us and we are going tomorrow to do a bank application!! Oh, how I appreciate Monica so very much. She has been amazing.

Finally...A Good Counselor!

Thank you, Monica Hayes from the Charlotte, NC office! We are on our 3rd counselor and perhaps, it's3rd times a charm! Monica has returned our phone calls and emails. I have received more emails from Monica in 4 days than I have received from the other counselors in 6 months. However, she is finding things in our file that are incomplete. Items that we gave other counselors that never made it into our file. We're so close, yet so far away. She found another debt report on our credit file today that will need to be paid and explained before it can go to underwriting.....great....another $301. Oh well, it's our debt that we owe and I am thankful that we have the ability to pay it off right now.

Holy Smokes!

We got a call back from NACA this evening. Our new counselor said that she would call us back this evening and she DID! Miracles can occur! Maybe this new counselor will get us to the closing table! Thanks Monica!

What In The World?

I want to cry....I just want to cry. I called this morning to talk to Glenda, our mortgage counselor. When she got on the phone, she told me that our file had been moved to a new counselor because they recieved my complaint Friday that I filed with NACA headquarters. So, I spoke to our new counselor. Talk abour IRATE! I found out that Glenda NEVER sent our file to the underwriting team. Instead, she sent it to counselor review and told us it had gone to underwriting. What a crock of crap! All this time with them and back to square one. Our new counselor is inputing all of the information that I faxed over last week when requested and will be sending it to underwriting today. Hopefully she holds up to what she says. Can you believe this?

Where Does It All Go?

So I called NACA and they said that in order for our file to move forwards, we would have to pay a new credit report fee and update all of our documents. I am so so sick of this. We update our documents and somehow or another nobody ever receives them. Where does it all go? I undersand they need updated documents, but why in the world do they not ever do anything with them? Also, I paid a new credit report fee on April 14th, when we wrote the contract. Nobody has done anything with our account since the last time I spoke with her.....absolutely ridiculous. Then again, what did I expect? Who am I trying to kid? ALL documents have been updated via fax. Yeah, we had to go out and purchase a fax machine. Just what we wanted to spend our money on. We need to get our bank app does ASAP. Come on NACA.......

Still......nothing

I guess we are still not making progress. Here we are, almost 2 weeks past the mandatory home purchase workshop, one week and one day past writing a contract on the home and 4 days past inspection. I just received a letter from the HAND department saying we are not qualified. This is because we still have no letter from the home buying workshop. Unbelievable. What are we going to have to do to close this house?

We FINALLY signed the contract

We signed a contract on a home that we will likely live in forever! It is 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bath, 2433 square feet, 2-story great room, in a wonderful neighborhood close to my mom, stone exterior, iron pickets etc.... It's beautiful inside and out. I can't wait to move in! Here is the house that we signed on:

Moving Along

I never heard from anyone at NACA yesterday. Who was I trying to fool when I thought I would? Ha. I was on the phone with them first thing this morning at 8:29, knowing they opened at 8:30. The office secretary told me that my counselor was in a meeting. However, when I expressed my disbelief in the lack of communication, I was put through to her line. She was very polite, answered all of my questions and told me that we CAN write our contract today! Yippie!! We are going to write the contract on the house at 4:30 today and I could not be more excited!!! I have called for the inspector, too. We have to use a NACA qualified inspector. I called the NACA hand department and was given a list of 2 names that they had on file. Great choices I tell ya. One in Clayton and one in Wilmington, neither within our immediate vicinity. Oh well, better than having to wait for an inspector to get qualified I guess. We are using Greg Watkins of Advance Looks. If anyone needs a NACA qualified inspector in the area, his contact information is (919) 523-9241. He was very helpful and reasonably priced considering he is traveling over an hour to get to us.

Here We Are....

Here we are on Monday April 13th and we still have no approval letter. Thursday, April 9th, we were told that we would receive our approval letter via email. Hmmm, I still do not have it. I called 6 times today! SIX times! Here is the timeline of callings:

8:48 a.m. ----> I called and the receptionist told me that our counselor was on a conference call and that I would need to call back after 11:00.

11:10 a.m. ----> I called and was told that our counselor was in a meeting and was automatically given her voicemail. I will NOT be leaving a message because obviously, I never receive a return phone call.

11:15 ----> I called and told them that I am not leaving a message because I never receive return calls. They informed me that she was in with another member and that I would have to call back in one hour.

12:12 p.m. ----> The receptionist informs me that I will not be able to speak with our counselor today because she is too busy. I ask to speak with another counselor ( I only need a paper emailed to me and a few simple questions answered....not rocket science or anything), only to be told that none of them can talk to me. She tells me to call back in one hour and speak with the office manager.

1:15 p.m. ----> At this point, I am very frustrated because my entire day has revolved around NACA and by 1 pm I was no further ahead than at 8 am. I called to speak to the office manager, as directed earlier. The office manager tells me that she does not have time to speak with me, takes my name and phone number and says she will call me back in a few hours. Hesitantly, agree and hang up. It's very sad how NACA members are treated.

AT THIS TIME, I CALLED NACA HEADQUARTERS. I WANTED TO TELL SOMEONE WITH HIGHER POWERS HOW WE ARE BEING NEGLECTED. HOWEVER, THE WAIT TIME WAS 57 MINUTES. RIDICULOUS. SIMPLY RIDICULOUS.

4:51 p.m. ----> I still had not heard back from the office manager, so I decided to call again. I made it clear this morning (or atleast I thought I did) that I needed to speak with my counselor today. Afterall, we do have a contract to write and if we lose this house because of their neglect, I am going to be very, very upset. I was informed again that my counselor was in a meeting and agreed to wait on the line. At one point, someone came on the line and told me I would have to leave a voicemail. NO! I absolutely refused. Why would I waste my breath with voicemail? I have never recieved a return voicemail from them and don't think it will begin now. I continued to wait. Then, the receptionist came on the line and told me that our mortgage counselor said she was very sorry, but that she would give us a call before the end of the day.

8:45 p.m. ----> NO PHONE CALL.

One thing is for sure.....tomorrow will be a long day! I don't understand this at all. We're so close to buying a house, but yet so far away.

It's Good Friday....

We are in our 6th month with the NACA program....are we ever going to close? Not without first writing a contract on a house! We were told to start shopping for a home, but we have no approval letter. Friday went by and we never received an approval letter. I left an email with the office staff at NACA after calling three times and being told to call back each time. I also wrote an email to Glenda and to the receptionist in the office. Did I get the courtesy of a return email or phone call No, of course not. I don't understand why there is such a lack of communication. It's to the point of being ridiculous. So, still, we sit with no approval letter. We have 2 homes in mind and will go see one of them today.

Thursday Night Meeting

I called and called and called NACA on Wednesday about the Home Buyer's Workshop that takes place on Thursdays. We were allowed to go!! Finally.....making progress. We went to the meeting and whew, it was alot of information. I had emailed our most recent bank statements and pay stubs to our counselor Thursday before the meeting, only to be told that they were not received. Why were they not received---they had been sent and had not come back. They are still in my sent file. I have a feeling she just did not look for them. Nevertheless, we did not get our approval letter that night. I was told it would be emailed to me Friday afternoon. Hmmmmmm...........are we starting the waiting game over again?

News....

We found out that NACA will NOT be using my income. Although we had almost anticipated this response, it is still very frustrating to know that for 6 months we have been strung along by NACA in hopes that they might accept my income because "they look at each person's situation differently." Well, guess what? Our situation was no different than every other self employed individual and they NEED 2 years of tax returns. With all that being said, they will only be using Donald's income. We were approved for a mortgage, just at a lower monthly mortgage allowance than we had been hoping and praying for. Better than nothing, yes. Dissapointing, yes. Relief to be finished with that part of the NACA program, yes.

I called today and tried to ask about the purchase workshop that all members must attend on a Thursday night. It was so frustrating because I could not get my question out without being placed on hold every 10 seconds. I am appreciative for the NACA program, but it'ssooo frustrating when you need to call them. And, wait...I just realized that I said we have been doing this for 6 months! 6 months and still not in a home......oh dear.

Could Today Be The Day?

Yesterday was the projected "hear by" date. I was a very long day and I still have no answers. I'm going to call today. Could today be the day that we find out some kind of news? Good news or bad news, I will take it at this point just for a little bit of closure. It's hard not knowing. I've continuously checked the status of our file online and nothing shows up. I'll keep you guys posted as the day goes on.

Something Has To Be Done...

As of yesterday, our file had not been sent to the NACA underwriters. For the 3rd time, I was told that our file had gone to the underwriters only to find out on the day we were supposed to receive an answer that it had not been sent. Yesterday, we had been working with the Charlotte NACA office for exactly 1 month. One whole wasted month. We could have closed on a house during this time. I called again this morning and voiced my frustrations and hopelessness in the NACA program. As of yesterday, I was ready to stop the program and call it quits because it feels like a waste of our time. Our mortgage consultant confirmed (again, for the 4th time) that our file had indeed gone to underwriting. She said she stayed until 9 pm last night moving files to underwriting. This should be it & I sure hope it is. Supposedly, we should hear something from te NACA underwriters between now and Tuesday, be ready for the workhop Thursday night, write a contract on a house as ealy as Friday morning if we choose to & close the 3rd or 4th week of April. Let's hope this all works out how they are telling me or I think I will scream so loud that our very distant neighbors in California will hear us (and we're in NC).

Nope...that was not it either....

It is March 25th, I called NACA and our mortgage counselor informed me that she had not sent our file to underwriting.....again. She said she has 20 0ther files and that she is really trying. In my honest opinion, at this time, NACA is completely missing the mark. They have a valuable service that many consumers need and can benefit from. However, the program needs some tweaking to make it work on a timely basis. Everything we have been promised to this point has failed and fallen through.

Could This Really Be It?

I spoke with our NACA mortgage counselor Monday, March 23rd (also my nieces birthday) and she said that she was finishing up on our file and it would be sent Monday. Really? Was she serious this time around? I could not help but wonder if this was really going to be the day that NACA underwriting would receive or file. I've been told that it is going to be sent now so many times, I am starting to lose hope. Supposedly, we should hear an answer by Wednesday, March 25th from the underwriting team at NACA. If all goes as planned, we can tak part in the mandatory home buying workshop on Thursday night. But first, we have to get a call from underwriting. Cross your fingers, toes, eyes and ears for this one.......it is sure to be an interesting wait!!

A song I heard this morning.....

I heard a song this morning, "While I'm Waiting" by John Waller. It says exactly how I feel at this time.

I'm waiting I'm waiting on You, Lord And I am hopeful I'm waiting on You, Lord Though it is painful But patiently, I will wait I will move ahead, bold and confident Taking every step in obedience While I'm waiting I will serve You While I'm waiting I will worship While I'm waiting I will not faint I'll be running the race Even while I wait I'm waiting I'm waiting on You, Lord And I am peaceful I'm waiting on You, Lord Though it's not easy But faithfully, I will wait Yes, I will wait I will serve You while I'm waiting I will worship while I'm waiting I will serve You while I'm waiting I will worship while I'm waiting I will serve you while I'm waiting I will worship while I'm waiting on You, Lord

NACA Information

I have received many emails asking more information about NACA. Although the process can be frustrating and is long, it is worth the wait. You can visit www.naca.com and navigate their website to learn alot about the program. Before you can get started with a mortgage counselor, you have to attend a 4 hour workshop in which NACA employees will explain the program and the process. Here is a good link for a basic overview http://www.naca.com/about_naca/purchaseOverview.jsp?language=null

Talk About A Delay....

I called NACA yesterday and left a message for our mortgage counselor around 9:30 am. I never received a phone call back. Because of that, I got up this morning and called NACA again. After waiting on hold for over 1/2 an hour, I finally spoke with her. She told me the story of the conference this weekend and how busy they were. I felt so bad for them that their days were so long, but how great that 25,000 people are going to be helped by the program! 25,000 people showed up for their conference needing help to save their homes or lower their interest rates. After talking about the conference, she told me that our file had NOT been sent to underwriting. At that moment, my heart sank and I could not even mumble the right words. I truly think that God was holding my tongue so that I did not say anything tha I would later regret. After taking the news in that our file had still not made any progress, after yet another week, I asked when she panned to send it. Supposedly, our file is going to underwriting today or tomorrow and we should hear results next week. I sure hope so. Until then.......keep us in your prayers!

What Is The Problem?

Supposedly, our file was sent to underwriting 7 days ago. We were told that we would hear a response in 3 days. I'm still sitting here twiddling my thumbs because I have heard nothing. I've been trying to call the NACA office for 2 days now and have yet to get a response. I have emailed 2 different people in the office, with no response from either. What is the problem? I'm getting very frustrated and I'm beginning to lose hope. Will NACA be able to make us homeowners or are we wasting our time, yet again?

It's About Time

Finally, we obtained all necessary documents and the ball is now in THEIR court! What a wonderful feeling. Our file should be in underwriting's hands right now and we should hear an answer (approval/denial) this coming week. The process was not easy, by any streatch of the imagination. It took a lot of committment, effort, dedication and time. We're rounding our last curve though and I cannot wait to say that NACA made us a homeowner! For now, I will end with NACA is going to make us homeowners!

1st Meeting With Charlotte NACA

After traveling about an hour and a half, we arrived at the Charlotte NACA office on February 25, 2009. We were seen by the director of the office and she was as pleasant as she could be. It was a pleasure to work with her. There were many, many errors in our file.....the Raleigh office had Donald down as Hispanic and it was quite comical when Ms. Miller (our new mortgage consultant) looked at us and hesitantly asked us what Donald' nationality was. They also had us down as single with no children, a wrong birthday and several important questions had not been asked nor answered. Oh dear. We gave Ms. Miller all of our documents and she uploaded them into our file. She gave us a new task list, which included:

1. Continue to save payment shock each month
2. Obtain new payment history from creditors
3. Obtain rental verification (Anita had never done this)
4. Obain employment verification (Anita had never done this)

Whoo-hoo! The list was winding down. We had met the minimum required funds. We had actually made some progress, which was very nice to hear. I asked when our file could be moved to underwriting and she told me that as soon as we collected and obtained all of these required documents, they could get it sent to underwriting within a week. This is becoming exciting again........NACA was going to make us homeowners!!

Not so excitng......

On January 6 after inquiring about the status of our account for a few days from our NACA mortgage counselor, we learned that they deemed us not ready for homeownership. How could this be? How could this happen? When I read that email, my heat dropped and I felt awful. My whole world came crumbling down around me. All the work I had done and the time that I had spent on this was now amounting to nothing. My stress level was so high that I could not keep up with daily life. I was getting bad headaches and was having a really hard time sleeping at night. All I could think about was NACA and what I could do to change their minds. Then I made a decision. A decision that would change our entire attitude again. I was giving this to God. He is far more powerful than I am and can fully handle the strains and stress. However, at the same time I realized that I could either give up, like many NACA candidates do, or I could stand back u, brush myself off and keep fighting this battle. I'm assuming you know the road that I chose. I did not work this hard and come this far for nothing and I was going to make sure that I was not stopping at nothing.

So, what kept us from moving our file forward to underwriting at this time? The tax lein still needed to be taken care of, which we knew about. I needed a voter registration card (was never told that), it was still showing that our debt had not been paid off and we needed upated payment history from our alternative lines of credit. Ugghh. It appeared that none of the documents we had given our mortgage counselor were updated. After several emails and many misunderstandings, Donald and I have decided to transfer our file to the NACA office in Charlotte, NC. We're hoping to make more progress here. NACA is going to make us homeowners!

Another Meeting......

We had another meeeting with NACA December 1st to find out our status. We turned in new paperwork and Anita was going to be getting ready to send it over to head mortgage consultants. This is really starting to get exciting now! NACA is going to make us homeowners!

Doing Our Part

So, we had a lot of tasks to complete before our file could make any progress. Each day I worked and worked and worked. Worked on my job, worked around the house, worked with my children and worked on our NACA task list. I spent several days calling debt collection services to make payment arrangements and obtain receipts for the payments that we had made. ***You will be required to show NACA receipts of ALL debt that has been paid off. Make sure to keep receipts. More than likely, the debt collection service will not offer you a reciept. You will have to ask for this. I recommend stating that you will require a receipt when making payment arrangements. Anytime you make a payment arrangement, get it in writing before making your payment. *** Obtaining reference lettes from some of our credit accounts (gym, Duke Energy, Sprint, etc) took alot of time and was stressful at times. There were instances where there records did not match mine and had to be changed. The easiest part for us was saving the required payment shock in the savings account. Paying off old debt felt wonderful, although it was quite depressing to see large amounts of money being used to pay off old debt. With NACA, you don't need perfect credit to get approved for a mortgage. However, you are required to pay off ALL debt that has occurred within the past 24 months. NACA is going to make us homeowners!

1st Intake Appointment

After getting very excited about the NACA program and learning some basic information at the workshop, Donald and I decided that we were definitely ready and willing to learn more about the program and what it had to offer us. I called the NACA office and scheduled an appointment with the Raleigh, NC office for November 3, 2008. We arranged for a babysitter and obtained directions to the office. We had the required documents which consisted of 3 months of bank statements, 4 week of pay stubs and any worksheet in the NACA workbook that we were asked to fill out at the workshop. Although the drive was about 1 hour and 15 minutes, the office was not hard to find. We were asked to arrive at the office 15-30 minutes prior to our actual appintment time. During that time, the office attendant, Eddie, took our workbook sheets that were required, our drivers licenses for copying and a check for $30. The money was used to purchase our credit reports and allows us to be members for the year. We were filled with such excitement and anxiety that it seemed like it was never going to be our turn. However, 5 mintues before our scheduled appointment time, our mortgage counselor called for us and we were taken to her office. Her name was Anita and she was very nice. We went through our budget, debts, credit reports and she asked alot of questions about the kind of home we wanted to purchase. After leaving her office, w were still excited to be a part of NACA. There was still something special and different about the NACA process. We still were very optimistic that we were definitely going to be homeowners. However, the next part of the program was left in our court. We were asked to do the following:

1. Get references from 3-4 alternative forms of credit. This could be our electric provider, home phone service provider, cable company, cell phone provider, etc. We did not have any credit cards so that was not an option. If you have atleast 3 credit lines open and in good standing on your credit report, alternative credit is not necessary. However, we only had our car payment, which does show perfect payment history.
2. Pay off our furniture account (which we would later find out to be a mistake because this could have been used as a great source of alternative credit)
3. Pay off Donald's tax lein and have the judgement stamped at the courthouse it was filed with (this will be done after the first of the year with our tax return)
4. Pay off a $64 medical account
5. Pay off a $642.02 medical account
6. Pay off a $42 car tax account that we did not know existed
7. Pay off a $160 medical account
8. Pay off a $526.53 medical account
9. Obtain rental verification (Anita would do this)
10. Obtain empoyment verifications for both Donald and I (Anita would do this)
11. Start saving "payment shock" each month until the date of closing (I will explain later)
12. Save atleast $3200 dollars in minimum funds (not all will be used at the time of closing) This amount varies for every person.

Whew..........could we do all of this? Yes, we could! If it's worth having, it's worth working for. That would become our motto.

You're probably thinking, what is payment shock? I had the same question. Payment shock is the difference of your anticipated mortgage from your current rent. Our current rent is $670 and our anticipated mortgage is $1200. That means that every single month, with NO exceptions, we have to put atleast $530 into a savings account. This shows NACA that we are capable of paying a higher housing payment each month and it also allows us to feel what it is like to make a higher payment each month. We have decided that we will put atleast $800 a month into our savings account and would like to put more when possible. NACA is going to make us homeowners!

When It All Began......

Our NACA joruney first began on October 19, 2008 at a workshop in Greensboro, NC for potential home-buyers and current home owners that were in need of loan restructuring. I must admit, we were very hesitant about this program at first because up until this point, we thought we would never become homeowners. Our thinking was, "If nobdy else could help us and approve us for a mortgage, how will they?" We found out about the program through Eastwood Homes while we were out house looking, which was merely a dream and time filler at the time.

We arrived at the workshop, which was held at a local hotel in a conference room. There were about 40 people there total and everyone seemed very anxious to hear about the program. The presenters were very helpful and informative. Afer listening to the presentation, we decided that this was definitely a program that we wanted to work through. What we found out was simple:

1. NACA does not require a down payment for the purhase of a home.
2. There are no closing costs when closing on a home through NACA.
3. NACA is very much againt predatory lending.
4. You do NOT need perfect credit to obtain a mortgage though NACA.
5. During your counselng sessions, your mortgage counselor with assist you in credit repair.
6. The NACA program can be lengthy, usually around 3-6 months.
7. Interest rates are generally lower when closing a home through NACA.
8. Every member gets the same exact interest rate no matter what your credit rating is.
9. With NACA, you're able to by your rate down, lowering your monthly payment.
10. There are many NACA offices all around the country that are eager to help people like us!

Hearing those facts had us fired up. We came home and immediatly starting working to move forward with NACA. At the workshop, we were given a yellow NACA workbook that was loaded with general information about the program as wel as worksheets to help determine a monthly budget and comfortable monthly mortgage based on our income and debts. From that moment, I felt like we would become homeowners very soon. For once, I felt on top of the world knowing that "NACA was going to make me a homeowner"!