Interest Rate Lock with a Lender if I'm Lender Shopping?

[Sarah K.]

I'm new to real estate investing and I've started to analyze deals in my area, which has been a difficult area to find a good deal (North Idaho). I've been talking with different lenders and I've been pre-approved with two residential lenders this last week. Since rates are rising, one of them offered for me to sign an Interest Rate Lock Agreement with a No Float option. I'm still getting my head wrapped around the lock agreements and the float/no float options, could someone give me a brief summary on how the benefits/disadvantages of signing an agreement like this?

Also, I am unsure if I should be signing any of these types of documents with one of the lenders if I might end up using a different lender once I find my first deal? One of my lenders said they cannot do a rate lock until I'm under contract, but this lender that sent me the agreement said they're able to do the rate lock for 61 days.

Lastly, it says on the document that if I need to change the lock agreement or cancel it, I am subject to additional fees, but it doesn't say how much the fees are. So does that mean if I use a different lender I still owe this lender a fee to cancel their lock? Or does that only apply if I use this same lender? It would probably be easier if I would just ask the lender directly these questions, but I've had a bad experience in the past telling a lender that I was talking to other lenders.