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!