NACA, SchmACA.... You're A SLACKA'

Being somewhat financially responsible, the undertaking of getting a mortgage seemed a lofty one.  After spending every dime of our savings to move to AZ I wasn't sure how this was gonna happen.  Since we were being completely awesome and living with my parents (jealous?) I knew we could start saving some.  Soon after we started looking into it we came upon a national, non-profit organization that tooted it's horn as the best mortgage available.  They have the backing of a major bank so we decided to go to an introductory meeting.  It sounded great.  They swore their interest rate was 1% lower than the regular bank interest rate.  They preached about their lack of closing costs.  We signed on the dotted line and the next week sent in hundreds of pages of financial documents.  We went to two meetings with our “loan officer.”  He needed just a couple more documents before he could turn us over to underwriting.  I got him the documents within a couple of days and then we waited.  And waited.  And waited.  I emailed him politely.  I emailed him less politely.  I asked questions.  I asked for updates.  The song was always the same, “I have it on the schedule for tomorrow/Thursday/the beginning of next week.”  We went on like that for about a month and a half.  He never even LOOKED at whether we needed anything else.  He never submitted it anywhere.  Of course.  Honestly, I didn’t know much about what you need, how much you need and what you don’t need for a mortgage so I assumed it would be a while before we could get one with a bank.  Happily, we had been in contact with a pretty sweet, awesome, cool housing counselor who told us we were fine and to just apply!  We did.  Within 2 days we had exactly what we needed and within a week we had signed papers to buy a house.  All while paying the same amount in closing costs and at a lower interest rate than the aforementioned non-profit was offering.  I emailed the loan officer at that non-profit and let him know that “we went with another lender.”  His profound and deeply touching response? “Thanks for the heads up.”  No, no.  Thank you, sir.  Thank.  You.