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"!