A “Pre-approval” is essentially a determination of your purchasing power of a home based mainly on your income and down payment. In other words, if you are “Pre-approved”, then that would mean that you will likely be approved for the stated maximum mortgage because your income demonstrates the ability to afford payments on that sum. 

It is important to note that a Pre-approval is not an actual mortgage approval, as it only determines the borrower’s ability to afford payments on a principal amount of a mortgage and does not take into account all the necessary information that is needed to approve the mortgage itself. Mortgage pre-approval do not typically take into account credit, job tenure, property appraisal, etc., since these require more extensive review and may not be available at that time. The reality is that many lenders do not invest their resources into an actual approval until borrowers have an accepted offer to purchase a property.