How best to arrange finances for pre-approval? Also, failing banks...

[Anonymous]

Hello,

My wife and I will be seeking pre-approval for a mortgage shortly.  Both of us have credit scores around 799 (frustratingly, Citibank just charged a service fee to an inactive $0 account and AT&T did a credit check - causing my score to drop 13 points from 800+).

We've got 10% for a down payment, which is spread between various sources.  About 50% of it is in our joint bank account at WaMu.  Another 20% is in my personal checking at Citibank.  Another 20% is in a T-bill that our family is providing.  The last 10% is in savings bonds.  My wife also has a 403B that's not being factored into the above. 

For pre-approval, what's the best way to arrange our assets?   Cash it all out into one savings account? Citibank seems slightly more secure than WaMu, though there are rumors they might buy them. 

It seems like it would take about a week for everything to clear if we wanted to pursue this route. 

Thanks!

[DallasLoanGuy]

do whatever you want to do.... as long as you can provide a paper trail....

[Anonymous]

I would go ahead and get it all into one accounth now just to keep the paperwork lighter later.  Keep copies of withdrawl reciepts/transfers/gifts, etc so when the time comes you can show them if needed.  There is a good chance that if you start looking and stuff in the near future (but got the money set up right now) byt he time you found a house an dgot ready to close, it would be 2 bank statements later and that is all they probably would care about.  If it shows in your savings ready to go for a couple months, sourcing the funds doesn't matter much.  That more a way to make sure the buyer doesn't use illicit funds (money from CC, undocumented income, seller gift, etc.)