This is a joint compliment of John Anderson, and complaint about our previous mortgage consultant, which in my opinion is a reflection on the organization as a whole. Not to be melodramatic, but we were nearly homeless BECAUSE of NACA, which is a situation I know the agency tends to frown upon. I understand complaining about [Mr. Jerk] is mostly fruitless at this point, considering he is no longer with the organization, but I feel like someone there should know exactly what happened with us. We started working with [Mr. Jerk] in February of 2009. He was always pleasant, but we noticed that, either as part of his character or work ethic, every time he met with us it was like he was meeting us for the first time.
We were buying a house from a friend, and we had the same house in mind from the beginning. It was a bit of a fixer-upper, and we were planning on financing the repairs through HAND. We had explained all this to [Mr. Jerk] at our first meeting. After that, at subsequent meetings, he would ask questions like, "did you guys find a house yet?" Or "does it need any work?" or "How will you be financing the repairs?" We would ask him before a meeting if we needed to bring anything, and he would always say "Just yourselves," but then we would get there and he would tell us there was something missing from our file, which would set us back weeks at a time. He retained no information about our situation, which we admit was a bit of an odd situation, but we thought all the more reason to maybe apprise yourself on a "client" you're about to meet with with a quick look over their file?
We believe it was because of this that our mortgage application was submitted for the wrong amount. The information from the inspection report was not communicated correctly to the HAND department or to our application. [Mr. Jerk]'s response to questions was always, "Just sign it, it's fine." – even after we reviewed our application and we noticed the amount listed was not even enough to cover the roof, much less all the repairs that were listed in the inspection. (Estimated at nearly $52,000, an amount [Mr. Jerk] had said in weeks prior would not be a problem.) When I refused to sign until I saw the HAND repair sheet, we discovered the error together - only the roof, windows, and furnace were on the repair sheet, and all for completely incorrect "estimates". At this point, [Mr. Jerk] conferred with John in the next room and came back with the number $35,000. He said that was the best he could do. I asked if that was enough, it would only cover a new roof, new windows, and a new furnace, and the house needed a considerable amount more done to it. No problem, he said. The lease was up on our apartment, and we were planning on moving in as early occupancy. No problem, he said. This was July, and we had a closing date set for August. We missed the closing date, no word from [Mr. Jerk]. Months went by, we would email, we would call, all the time being told, "Nothing yet, nothing yet." Then one day in October we get an email, that he's "resigning" suddenly.
That is when we started working with John. He got back to us immediately, always doing his best to help. The DAY [Mr. Jerk] "resigned," John sent us paperwork from the bank that must have been sitting in [Mr. Jerk]'s inbox for weeks, because all the dates on the sheet were a month old. After going back and forth with HAND, TRYING to get contractors signed up, bids submitted, FINALLY we were ready to close. Then one day in NOVEMBER, John calls us to tell us, as it turned out, the $35,000 WASN'T enough for the bank to give us a mortgage. We would have to start the process over completely to resubmit a new loan amount, prove to NACA we had the extra money, etc etc. Here we were, nine months from the start of the process, and the buyer had understandably lost patience with NACA, and had to sell the house to a flipper. We are trying to work something out with the flipper to stay in the house, possibly buy it from him when he's done doing the work, for double the amount we had tried to buy the house for initially. [This ended up NOT happening, but at the time I wrote the letter, this is what we were afraid was going to happen]
I guess the point of all this is to reiterate to whoever is reading this, IF you're still reading this, that you don't deal with retail merchandise, or sell cars, you deal with people's LIVES, their HOMES. The people you have working for you have the ability to make or break the biggest purchase of a person's life, and it's not to be taken as lightly as it was by [Mr. Jerk], and most of the people working in the HAND Department.
I feel John did everything he could to help us, he was always responsive to us, even responded on weekends, even in a time of what I can only assume was absolute chaos losing the only other mortgage consultant in the office. I am confident that if we had had him from the beginning, we would not be in the situation we are today. I just hope my letter brings some attention to the fact this can and DID happen, and hopefully prevents it from happening to someone else in the future.
AND, as a BONUS - I give you - my HAND Department Complaint List:
o We were never sent our initial packet of information about the program, until we asked for it, so we were a month late on getting quotes.
o [The man we were told to contact] NEVER responded to emails, [his secretary, I think?] responded on occasion, but usually with NO helpful information.
o Anytime I called, I was passed around on hold – once for an hour, and often the 800 number did not even work – I would get a “this line is out of service” message.
o I called to ask about whether they had received a quote a contractor was faxing on a Friday, the woman I spoke to said no, to tell the contractor to fax again, and I would get an email to accept the quote. Was then informed when I called the following Tuesday that quotes are not accepted via fax.
o I got word from all three of my contractors that anyone they spoke to at the HAND department was either rude, unhelpful, or gave them incorrect information.
§ Had great difficulty getting contractors to agree to work with NACA/HAND, had 2 contractors back out of working with us when the process was too difficult/help was not available. This set us back another month.
The ONLY person who helped us was Michael, who I think is the head guy there. He was wonderful and patient every time we talked to him directly.
And there you have it! My full, honest review of the cluster-eff known as NACA. I hope this is of some help to anyone looking to go with them. When they say "it's not too good to be true" it's not... but it's damn close...
