Our First NACA appointment with our counselor

Day 101 on my way to homeownership.

KL and I arrived at the appointment roughly 15 minutes early. When we arrived there was a man having words with his someone (I assume his counselor) regarding some delay in closing on his house. I felt bad for him and a little disturbed about his experience. I hope this sort of thing doesn't happen to me when I am close to getting my new home.

Kevin and I sat down to wait for our counselor to be available. Around 9:10 am we we were called into the office of Pat Baker, our NACA counselor.

I think the appointment with Pat went really well, except for a few glitches. Pat explained to us that the "Upload from your computer option" doesn't work. So the time I had spent the previous night uploading documents since April was wasted. My counselor did not have those documents.

Pat was new to NACA and explained to KL and me that not just anyone can be a NACA counselor, that it required skills that the average person doesn't have. We were among Pat's first NACA clients and she was processing us using a colleagues log-in because she didn't have her own log-in to the system yet. She also mentioned that she didn't have a working NACA telephone line which got me wondering how do I contact my counselor in the future.

During the meeting with Pat, she scanned into the computer

1. a copy of my and KL's drivers license,
2. our voter's registration form,
3. and our most recent bank statements.

We went over our budget with her. When I had done the budget online, it was only signed by me, so we printed the budget out, and Kevin Leary signed it and Pat scanned it in to the system. The budget showed our payment shock of $352. The budget showed our mortgage at $2500 a month with a mortgage of $362,000.

We both signed a "NACA minimum Required Funds Form"

We created a NACA task list which Kevin and I both signed that asked for the following

• KL - Employment - member to provide HR Contact
• KL - Pay Stubs - pay stubs to be provided monthly during process
• KL - Rent - address to be provided for rental verification form.
• KL - Bank Accounts - bank statement every month during process any cash withdrawals over $199 needs an explanation during process
• JB - Credit explanation - Submit letter regarding late payment for Chase of 60 days
• JB - Credit explanatino - Submit letter regarding late payment for Victoria Secret of 30 days.

Our meeting with Pat took almost two hours. I didn't get back to work until around 11:30 am. Kevin, with Pat's permission left around 1 hour and 15 minutes into the session.

The scramble before the appointment.

Day 100/101 on my way to home ownership.

My husband and I went to a wedding in England and just got back Monday July 5 at 8:30 pm. we had to scramble a bit to get ready for our NACA appointment at 9 am on Thursday, July 8.

On Wednesday, evening July 7 I went to www.naca.com, clicked on Webfile/Status from the home page, logged into my NACA file. It was late, but I needed to update my file before my appointment tomorrow.

Copied below is the option for uploading your documents:

D. Documents:
You can submit additional document to NACA. The documents would also be sent to your Servicer once your file is submitted to the Servicer. The options to submit documents are identified below.

a) Fax using your personal cover sheet. Click here to get the fax cover sheet.

b) Email using your personal email and send documents to:

c) Upload from your computer. Click here to upload documents.

I chose option "c" as it seemed like a no-brainer.

I uploaded my bank statements, credit card statements, etc. updating everything I had sent since May 13.

After that, I went about the task of creating the online budget.

My husband and I track all our expenses to the dollar in quicken. Prior to going to England we had filled out in pen the budget that came with the NACA handbook.

So very late on Wednesday, evening July 7 I was filling out the online budget based on the numbers Kevin and I had discussed. By the time I finished updating everything it was well... already July 8 and our appointment was 7 hours away.