You don't need every dollar sitting in your account to get pre-approved, but the funds do need to be fully documented well before closing day. A lender can pre-approve you based on your documented ability to source the down payment: savings, a documented gift, or funds you're clearly on track to have. Someone with $30,000 saved who's expecting a $50,000 gift can often be pre-approved as though they have $80,000. The catch is that a pre-approval like that is contingent on the money actually showing up. If the gift or the savings never materializes, the pre-approval no longer holds. As for when the money is due: earlier than most people think. All of your funds need to be documented and, in lender terms, sourced and seasoned roughly a week to ten days before closing, because underwriting has to clear that paper trail before your final loan documents can be issued. A gift arriving late is often handled as a funding condition, verifying the money actually arrived in escrow. One more thing from the buyer's-agent side: including proof of funds with your offer, like a recent bank statement, strengthens it, because the seller can see your down payment is real. If you want to know exactly what you'll need documented and when, that's the kind of thing we map out on the free Roadmap conversation before you're under contract.