Mortgage approvals... Who knew?

I have watched enough episodes of house hunters, property virgins and my first place to make even Sandra Rinomato sick (she's the Property Virgins Guru). Really it just makes E sick, you should hear the groan every time I turn it on and he says in his over dramatized way "If I have to watch one more episode I am going to explode!" That said, I really thought that I knew the ins and outs of the process.

E and I spent 2 1/2 hours on the phone with the approval man and still aren't quite sure what happened.

"Here's your interest rate, but it's not really your interest rate because we will lock you in when you make your offer and fully approval." (Well that seems ridiculous, you are looking to be "pre-approved" so that you know what you can and are willing to spend, isn't the interest rate a big piece of that?  Can't we lock into a rate now so that we know what we're looking at? Whatever...)

"If you lock into a higher rate we can give you incentives on the front end, like $10 K towards closing." (Okay, I am exaggerating a bit, but that seems a little icky. You are putting a gold nugget in front of me so that I get into a higher payment/rate in the long run, I think I'll pass, but thanks for looking out for me.)

"And that's only like a difference of $12/month really." (Dear sir, that $12/month is food for my dog for a month and a half, a haircut for my husband, a bottle of wine, 10 songs on itunes... I could go on."

I digress, this is probably hyper critical but I just felt weird about the whole thing. We will see how it goes next week.

The following picture is of Target Field, the Twins stadium in Minne. A celebration of spring FINALLY arriving and homage to the no hitter thrown last night. Enjoy!