My SO and I are in the middle of the process of buying a home through NACA. Regarding timing: we went to the workshop Oct 6th, had our first counseling appointment Oct 12, and have our second one Nov 8th. We didn't have all of our paperwork together by Oct 12 (missing some W2s and tax stuff), and we had to write a couple of letters explaining a few minor items on our credit reports. We expect to have everything in place by Nov 8 to qualify for pre-approval shortly thereafter.
Just as an FYI, they do a thorough analysis of your financial situation to make sure that you have enough money saved up for the "payment shock" of any differences between rent and the mortgage payment, as well as making sure that you have enough $$ to actually move and etc.
Once we have our pre-approval, we'll have to go to a Purchasing Workshop. Since they STRONLY recommend a NACA approved real-estate agent, we're going to be bringing our agent to get him "NACA certified." (He's a friend of ours).
Much of the timing in this case is being set by us. We're not planning on buying/moving till Jan/Feb, so we're not in any rush. I've also been working on cleaning up our credit over the past 6 months so we don't have many outstanding issues on the reports themselves anymore.
My SO's father promised us to help us with the "down payment", so we're going to be looking at a rate of ~2-3%. Pretty sweet!!
