Question About Pre-Approval or Prequalified Offers with Set Interest Rate (and Not a Range)

[Anonymous]

This board has been a godsend for me so I'm going to keep mining you guys for information... I've already struck gold!  
 
I thought I would start this in a new thread (instead of asking the question in a related thread) in case someone else had the same question in the future. Anyways... I've learned here that if you get a prequal or pre-approval offer that lists a set interest rate instead of a range, that's a good sign that you will get approved. Has anyone gotten a prequal or pre-approval offer with the set interest rate and then applied and got a lower interest rate? I'm wondering because my CSP prequal offer has a set interest rate of 25.24%, but I anticipate that my score will be a fair amount higher (and my utilization will be lower) when I actually pull the trigger in a few weeks than it was when I first saw the prequal offer for the CSP.

[Anonymous]

Yes.  Always compare your offer to what's online.  If you're at top of the range for the offer it's a good gamble to just cold app it online and get the lower APR even though you should PIF and the APR shouldn't matter.

I've done it this way a few times and resulted in a lower APR than the offer.  I can't really specifically remember offer vs online but it was 2-5% depending on the lender.

[Anonymous]

I meant to say “with a set interest rate and then got a rate lower than what was stated in the prequal offer.” I just edited my OP.