<prompt> Human: Last time I bought a house was back in 2003. I was 22 and had two grand in my pocket. The only thing I really remember about buying a house was showing up with a 1500 check and signing a bunch of papers. Fast forward 11 years, the process seems to gotten a little more complicated. I need to turn in a statement of all my accounts. Stocks, HSA, savings, checking, IRA, 401k, etc. Just for a pre-approval. From what I read online the pre-approval isnt definitive in any way.  <response>: So youre experiencing first hand the blowback from the mortgage lending crisis of 2008.Banks used to have an incentive to move mortgages as fast as possible to anyone they could because they were being bundled into compund securities and sold like hotcakes while credit ratings were just automatically top shelf.Now they have an incentive to make people jump through hoops so only people who are actually financially sound can get loans. Pre-approval is the first step of the vetting process, and in a way will prepare you for making the deal later youve already had to gather the info that will be relevant.From a sellers perspective, even if it doesnt mean anything, it does prevent time wasted with people who are not likely to buy the house. Its a pain in the ass to sell a house, and if you can avoid spending a lot of time negotiating with a buyer whos financing is going to fall apart when its time to close, thats valuable. Yes pre-approval is not definitive, but it is a good indicator. You are taking a lot of uncertainty out of the situation. 