The following is a message/letter we posted to the managers at
NACA.com(Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America).
5/27 2009
Yesterday we gave up. We just could not take any more. The following
is a copy of the letter I wrote to our counselor, who we loved. I have
removed her name for privacy.
Dear Counselor,
This letter is to thank you for all of your hard work, both of us are
very grateful for you patience, professionalism and advocacy on our
behalf.
Sadly, NACA has let us down at every opportunity and this letter is to
inform the organization that we will no longer require your services.
We are fed up. We just can't take it anymore. We can;t sleep at night
wondering and waiting for NACA to get their act together. And we can
never get a straight answer fro anyone, ever, about anything.
This is the single most disorganized organization I have ever dealt
with. Given the latest task list of stupid stuff we received from the
lenders on Wednesday May 27, we are just walking away. After 4
requests for "additional documents" we're through.
And let's be specific here, so there is no confusion.
We attended the workshop in February of 2009 in Aurora IL. It was a
mess. The speakers were disorganized and unfocused. Our packets we
incomplete, our request for an appointment were incorrect and the
presentation was poorly presented.
When attempting to record the required documents and data in the
website, as we were advised to do prior to our first appointment, we
never were able to make it work. We are both technology professionals,
we looked for any possible way to make this work, and there is none.
This kind of technology is a good idea, but NACA's site is clearly
inadequate for the task. Even looking at the site today, our
information and status is either missing, incomplete or incorrect.
This does not inspire a great deal of confidence.
So, rather than getting time to review our documents at our first
meeting, we spent most of the time having to fill out paper documents.
You were very good at working the numbers we were able to assemble and
giving us a thumbnail assessment, we walked away full of hope, but
with our fingers crossed that everything was correct. We turned around
an extensive (12 items) 'to do list" in a matter of days.
Over 250 (!!) faxed pages, roughly 90 days and a dozen phone calls
later, and we are still getting jerked around over stupid stuff. And
let's not forget, we are VERY well qualified applicants. My FICO is XXX
Example one: we submitted all our bank statements, check stubs and tax
returns in March. But by the time the lenders bothered to look at it,
(April? May?) we had to submit yet another set of bank statements,
check stubs and tax forms, not to mention have yet ANOTHER credit
report pulled, because it was, in the opinion of the lenders, out of
date. Whose fault is that?
Example two: They requested verification of my partner's child
support, which I provided copies of court orders. That wasn't good
enough, so then they requested 12 months of payment history. If he
was in arrears with child support, his ex-wife would have filed a
deadbeat dad suit against him long ago. This was totally
demoralizing.
Example three: They requested a quit claim deed on a property he have
had no financial interest in for nearly 10 years. Not the houses he
owned a couple of years ago, but the one he owned 10 years ago that
was no longer even listed on his credit report - and was recorded to
have been transferred to his ex-wife. This should no longer show on a
title search, since it was recorded several years ago.
I submitted two W2 forms from my prior employer. This was also
reflected on my tax forms. Apparently nobody at NACA has ever seen
something like this (a company merger) so I was asked to write a
letter. Even after a detailed letter explaining the merger, they are
STILL requesting information. If it's good enough for the IRS, why
isn't it good enough for NACA?
My favorite request came last week. In spite of the fact that we are
now less than seven days away from the recorded end of our two year
lease, attested to by our landlord, on the NACA document, stating that
our lease ran from June 1, 2007 to June 1, 2009 we were required to
get a document from a landlord we have not spoken to in two years to
fill our YET ANOTHER NACA FORM, to cover us for the week (!) that
would fulfill the NACA requirement of two years of rental history. How
is it possible that 1 year and 51 weeks is not enough?
Then they requested 12 months of canceled checks, costing us nearly
$50 to provide. Then they requested another copy of the corrected
history verification form - which was already correct.
The final straw was our reserve. This was a gift from our
family. When we knew that we were going to buy a condo, I used my
previous savings to pay down our debts. The gift was to cover our down
payment, closing costs and renovations. I deposited the check from our
family in my bank in February 2009.
Suddenly this became a huge issue, so I requested a
notarized document, from the bank, attesting to the gift. But that
seemingly wasn't enough for your lenders, suddenly they wanted a copy
of my family's bank statements?!
That is the single most grossly inappropriate request I have ever, in
my entire 10 years of working in the banking industry, heard. You are
asking us to provide sensitive family financial records to
total strangers, containing bank balances, account numbers, detailed
payments information to people who cant even read a single paragraph (
see W2s above) It's clear that your lenders are just making stuff up
at this point and that the people working our files just simply dont
know what they are doing, or are allowed to do by law.
It was me, not NACA who came up with the idea of a canceled check
image to resolve this, why didn't a lender think of that? I really am
just stunned.
In a recent email to two people at NACAI stated that we started
this in March and that our landlord had refused to renew our lease
specifically because we were buying a house. I stated very directly
that we were going to be essentially homeless because of the constant
NACA delays. The response from someone at NACA was, and I quote,
"the lenders aren't at this location, I don't know how long it takes,
I'll call you when we hear anything." I was further notified that "If
you enter into a contract, NACA will not honor or recognize it without
your qualification status already established."
How is it that I can build a house in 90 days, but I can't buy one? I
could walk from Washington DC to Los Angeles in 90 days, but NACA cant
generate a pre-approval letter? This is just INSANE!
I work for (a well respected financial institution) as an analyst. We
don't do mortgages, or else I would have done it here. The Executive
Vice President, heard me talking about buying a house at our company
Christmas party and would casually ask me, in passing, how everything
was going.
On Friday, 25 May, 2009 she called me into her office since I was so
despondent over the situation and she gave me this advice: it doesn't
take 90 days to get a mortgage commitment. It doesn't take 2 weeks.
"Get a new lender."
And so, desperate, in the space of three hours yesterday, I have
secured a pre-approval from a reputable lender. I am making an offer
on a property tonight and depositing a check into escrow tomorrow. We
are going to use the 10k for a down payment and have the seller cover
closing costs. We are going to pay one half percent more for the loan,
but finance ten thousand dollars less, so it works out to a tiny
difference in the scheme of things.
Because of NACA's grossly disorganized processes however, we are going
to incur significant expenses for temporary housing and double moving
costs because our closing date will be past the end of our lease.
Thanks NACA.
But, we are going to have a roof over our heads eventually. We could
have saved ourselves months of frustration, hundreds of pages of faxes
and hours of phone calls and a couple of thousand dollars in expenses
if we had just done this in the first place. I have attached the copy
of the pre-approval for your review.
The reason I came to you was because I heard your CEO, Bruce Marks, on
NPR in February, talking about the housing crisis and how NACA is an
alternative to traditional lenders. I was a believer! In truth, it's a
grossly inadequate substitute for real financial professionals.
In closing Counselor, I want to make sure you know that both of us
hold you in very high regard and our leaving in no way reflects on
you. You did your job, it's too bad everyone else at NACA isn't as
focused and hard working as you.
Our best wishes for your future success. Feel free to contact me
directly if you have any questions or I can be of service to you in
the future.
Sincerely,
Me.
Everything in this letter is true. There were even more examples of
how incompetent they are and all the screwups they made, but I edited
this down to just the greatest hits.
I was all gung-ho about this program, I really was. I wanted to
believe. I wanted to do something for my community. It wasn't just
about the money. But the delays were ENDLESS. In spite of the fact
that we were very qualified, no credit problems, no drama, nobody at
NACA could ever tell us when or if we were going to get a mortgage.
Every time it was 'well this looks good we should hear back in a
couple of days"
We provided no fewer than 6 faxed packets of information. Why can
they not assess the file completely enough the first time to provide a
concise list of what is needed and be done with it. I realize our
situation is potentially more complex than most of their applicants,
but this back and forth with STILL no final approval is a ridiculous
waste of time and effort
We even convinced our agent to join NACA so she could work with us.
The other agents in her office tried to warn her, but she did it, as a
favor, to us. She should have listened to them.
And this ignores all the way left politics involved. It really is
pretty shameless. We decided we would just hold our nose and drink the
kool-aid, because in the end, we would save a few buck and get a home.
We were wrong, oh so very very wrong.
The final straw was my taxes. I filed for an extension, since I wanted
to used the 8k homebuyers credit this year and not have to file an
amended return. I was due a refund, as clearly stated on my tax
documents.
last Friday they told me that I HAD to file my taxes before the
lenders would move forward. Even though I had a copy of my IRS
extension and was due a refund.
Knowing how long it takes to get documents (in this case a check) from
the IRS was just too much. And we just knew that even after that,
something else would come up. And then something else.
So yeah, in spite of some NACA cheerleaders who will read this, NACA
is a last resort. They are for poor people with bad credit who are
such a bad risk that nobody else will give them a mortgage. They are
for people who dont know enough to read a contract and ask questions.
They are for people who dont think to bring a lawyer to review their
docs before signing. These are the people who got nailed before and
these are the people who are the CAUSE of the mortgage crisis.
Sorry if I offended anyone, I know that NACA does have some qualified
applicants, but in the end, I speak the truth.
If you want a roof over your heads before it starts to snow again, go
somewhere else if you can. A couple of dollars each month, in your
monthly payments is just not worth it.
If you have 6 to 9 months to fart around, these are the folks. Oh, and
you may want to buy a cheap fax machine. You're going to need one.
