Now I know how The Bachelor felt.

At the end of the day, we had only one rose to give to the winning builder finalist.

It was a surprisingly difficult thing to tell the other two finalists that it wasn't meant to be.

But then I thought about it -- we had a whirlwind courtship that went on for more than a month, and there was a lot at stake. A six-figure house deal and a commitment to a four-and-a-half month project that would have good times and bad.

You should have seen the face of our builder when I gave him the good news -- and the rose. He was at once thrilled and horrified.

When I told him that the rose was a joke, a little satire to lighten things up, he relaxed a bit.

He came in lower than the other bidders. He said it was because the timing was perfect to start another project, and it was close to his home base, so it would be easy for him to keep tabs on things.

When he presented his sales package a couple of weeks back, he provided a list of 25 references for us to check up on. That, in and of itself, was impressive. Talking to a handful of the randomly selected references salted it away.

Our new nickname for our builder is Neo, after the Christ-like character from the Matrix movies. Every one of the references we called said he was very professional, was always available and was ready to act when a problem arose. All important things to us. We also used the response times from the builder finalists as a major measuring stick throughout the selection process. We made a note of how long it took them to come up with their estimates and how long it took them to call us back when we had questions.

Neo almost always answered his cell phone right away and the one or two times I left a message, he called back within a couple of hours.

While he probably can't fly or take on 343 Agent Smiths at the same time, he can apparently do all of the things a custom builder is supposed to do to make sure the project is a success for himself and the client.

Of course, I will hold back on calling him The One until we take possession of our house -- slated to be Oct. 15 -- and everything is up to our expectations.

As for what's next on this odyssey called building our dream home -- the dirty little thing called financing.

I met with our banking rep this week and officially applied for the mortgage. It was our lucky day -- the rates had just dropped to 5% over five years.

A thank you ...

She said we'll likely see our approval by tomorrow, and then it will go to our lawyer. He will arrange land titles, and then our mortgage can be registered. Once that happens, our builder will be able to begin making draws from our mortgage.

FOUR INSTALMENTS

Essentially, that means he will take his funds in four instalments as the project progresses. Each time, the bank will come out and do an appraisal to make sure the work is being done and the funds are being put into the home.

From my perspective, the less I have to deal with invoices and paperwork, the happier I'll be. Just give us the keys on Oct. 15.

As it is, we'll likely have to use our line of credit to come up with the initial instalment to get the process going this week.

We have a lot of our capital tied up in the lot purchase, so we don't have piles of cash wrapped up in socks and stashed all over our backyard for the deposit.

Once the mortgage is registered, the loan in the form of a line of credit can be transferred over to it.

While a traditional mortgage is easier to figure out -- the builder has possession of the home and you don't begin paying the mortgage until you get the keys -- the draw mortgage makes more sense for a smaller, custom builder. Having to finance four or five projects at the same time isn't feasible for smaller builders. The high-volume builders probably have an easier time doing that.

The draw mortgage will mean we will essentially be paying two mortgages at the same time -- one drawback to the process. But, it will only be for a few months, so it shouldn't be too difficult.

You may be thinking to yourself, "I thought you said last week that you'd have your property staked out and the trees cleared by now. What gives?"

Thanks to my telepathic abilities, I was able to receive your thought and have the answer:

Apparently, Jinxy reads The Sun...