NACA — Local services in Tampa

This review is an honest account of my experience so far. Please read through to the end, I want you to understand what you are signing up for.

My initial experience with NACA is greatly different from my current point of view.

I attended the required in person event July 8, 2023.

At first I was ecstatic to work with NACA. I immediately began the exhaustive qualification process after attending the in-person event and waited until September 6th, 2023, before my first call with a counselor. You will be required to submit FAR more information than is required by a traditional mortgage lender.

Be prepared, there is no sense of urgency in this process.

I imagine the number of counselors available per potential member is largely unbalanced making available appointments very hard to come by.

My experience with the initial counselor assigned to me was negative. I found her condescending and unresponsive to questions or concerns.

Since that initial call last September, I reached out to the 1-800 hotline multiple times with questions and was told to contact my counselor, which I did, unsuccessfully.

Emails went unanswered, or if they were answered I’d receive “read the handbook” as a response. I was flabbergasted. I couldn’t imagine responding to one of my clients at my job like that.

I will also add, I have never had an appointment that started on time. It seems the counselors do not place much value on your time because I've had appointments start anywhere from 20-45 minutes past the agreed upon time without any notice that they are running late.

At one point, I called the 1-800 number asking customer service to have her contact me. They emailed her and copied me requesting her to reach out, yet she still ghosted me.

The very last call we had she assured me that she’d submit my application immediately and contact me the next day.

I didn’t hear back from her for 3 weeks, not to mention she didn’t submit anything.

I was so disgusted I wound up contacting a traditional mortgage broker who treated me with far more respect and a sense of urgency. She got me approved in 2 days and helped me research multiple down payment programs! The difference was uncanny.

Unfortunately, the timing was off, and I had to sign a new lease for an apartment.

Fast forward to February 2024, I receive an email from a different individual with NACA asking for an update on where I was in my desire to work with NACA. I was apprehensive, yet I decided to give the process another try.

So far, my experience is vastly different. I am very happy with my new counselor’s kindness and genuine desire to help me. I feel much more confident with his support and know I have a professional on my side.

I’m still moving through the process. The benefits of NACA’s program are incredibly enticing and can open the door to home ownership for you if you are matched with the right person.

Attend an event. Familiarize yourself with the process and decide if it's...

I had my first session with the counselor Dwayne on June 9th scheduled for 9am. At 8:50am, Dwayne emails me to let me know he's in training and running late. As such, he pushed our meeting to 9:30am. Although, I was already logged in. At 9:30am, I logged back in and zoom says 'waiting for the host.' At 9:49am, I emailed Dwayne letting him know, I'm logged in but he's not present. At 10:17am, Dwayne finally reaches back out to me to let me know he's ready to start our session. We started our session, 1 hour and 17 minutes later than scheduled. Not only that, he only communicated with me prior at 8:50am. There were no other correspondence from him to let me know what was going on with our session. I'm very glad I didn't have any other important meetings. As part of the call, he was going over the advantages of the NACA loan. He stated there's no down payment. I replied so what happens with the down payment? Is it paid by the bank or the NACA? He replied, there's no down payment. After further inquiry, I realized the down payment is essentially rolled into the loan balance. I told him, the program should be more forthcoming about that as I had to ask him various questions to simply get to that fact. As the uninformed might not be aware. No down payment means you will have a higher loan balance which means more interest expense (even with NACA's lower rate) over the life of the loan. Towards the end of our call, he talked about my action plan. He stated he would be emailing over items to help me address my action plan. The day after the session, I emailed him asking for the items so I could wrap up my action items sooner than later. No response from him. Two weeks later, I sent another email to follow up on the items he was supposed to email to me. Still no response. It's now almost 3 weeks later and no response from him. My honest opinion: based upon my experience with Dwayne, I don't think highly of the program. His lack of communication, and time management is not only alarming, but it's also discouraging and just unprofessional. I can't imagine being in the process of closing on a loan and not being able to move forward due to lack of action on his part. I'm hoping it gets better or I get someone else who's more on top of things. This is my honest opinion of my experience with NACA. Thank you. Hope it...

NACA stands for Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America. Their goal is to help you achieve the dream of home ownership. Today it seems that if you want to buy a house you have to have started saving for it before you were born, or you need to be some sort of Einstein in order to come up with the right equation to allow you to purchase a home. There is always one variable or another getting in the way of achieving the right result. X might be interest rates, Y could be insurance, Z- real wages divided by inflation, N- the amount of savings you have available for a downpayment, and so on. If you are able to solve for one, there is always something else you need to compensate for. It's overwhelming, especially if you're the first generation to try because your parents weren't able to get there and so didn't have the knowledge base to pass on to you. That's where NACA comes in, not only does it have the knowledge to help you understand all of the variables for both the short and long term of owning a home, but it is also willing to aid with essential financial support. NACA exists to help you obtain a home and keep it. They partner with you to educate, plan, and budget for every step of the process. They don't stop there. They also search with you, help to inspect and purchase. It's difficult to save sufficient funds for a downpayment. It's discouraging to research the process and wrap your head around everything entailed along with the expense. It's scary to maneuver such a big and important journey alone. NACA helps make things less scary. So far I am still at the beginning of the NACA process. The first step is an orientation to learn about the organization. Then you are assigned a counselor who works with you to get your financials and residential history in order. They help you figure out your household budget and how much you can afford to spend on a mortgage each month. There is no pressure, or time limit. The counselors are experienced, patient and invested in a successful outcome. It's an impressive program. I look forward to being able to provide an update as I get further along...