Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America

May 18th, 2008 @ 4:04 PM by Alden Smith

I’ve written about contacting your mortgage holder and trying to make arrangements to stop foreclosure on your property.  This is a reasonable idea, and one everyone that is even half way responsible would make.  But how effective is this process?  On the Union Leader of New Hampshire website today was an article about a woman, Zena Collins, who was in great financial trouble.  It had come to the point where she was using battery powered lights and showering in cold water because her electricity was shut off.  She was of course struggling with making house payments on property that she had refi’ed.  Collins went from a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage at an 8 percent interest rate in 2000 to an adjustable-rate mortgage at 8.5 percent two years later so she could use the equity to replace appliances and fix a cracked patio.  When reset time came, she was out of luck.  Ms. Collins admits she has made some poor financial choices, but wanted to make things right.  She tried.  Her mortgage holder was California-based Countrywide Financial.  She made a lot of calls, got a lot of runaround, and never resolved things with Countrywide.  Instead, she finally went to Keith Johnson, director of Washington D.C. office of NACA, the Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America.  He gathered her financial data, and in October went to loss mitigation, completely bypassing Countrywide.  Within 60 days, Collins had a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage of 4 percent. Her monthly payment would cover both the principal and interest, and she would pay no fees for refinancing.

We have to wonder why this is so.  The non-profit that helped Collins out did an admirable job of fixing things for her, but it should not have taken this amount of time for anything to be done.  Collins made her payments on time and was never late.  She was of course a victim of her own poor financial choices, but had the guts to stand up to that and seek help.  She received nothing from her mortgage holder but a runaround, and it took the non-profit NACA to make things right.  Completely bypassing Countrywide was probably the smartest move they made.

I realize many of these companies are probably very busy right now with dealings on all the poor mortgage choices.  Yet somehow it seems to me that if they cannot at least look into a person’s mortgage that has paid responsibly but admits they are in trouble, then I have to wonder about the other people in this mess.  Surely, bureaucratic wheels turn very slowly.  But, as in the case of Collins, there is no need to be ignored as she was.  And that is what troubles me the most.  The bottom will never appear if this sort of thing continues.  It is good to know that there are organizations like NACA to help fill in the tremendous holes.

2 Responses to “Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America”

1. daniel says:

   May 23, 2008 at 1:19 pm

   hey will u guys send me soem money if i pay u guy back i live on 403 north wet st. rock ford ohio 45882 and i need to borrow some so i can pay this persone that;s going to build my log cabin thank u if u can help me out with this loan or emial me back at danielganger@yahoo.com
2. daniel says:

   May 23, 2008 at 1:19 pm

   403 north wets st. will u plez call me 419-3632349 thank u