The bond market is taking a beating this morning as initial jobless claims for the week ended 5/17 were down 9,000 instead of being up 4,000 as expected. Additionally earnings coming from companies in the retail sector of the economy that are not related to housing having been coming in better than analysts had feared.   The Fed minutes to their April meeting released yesterday indicated that rate cutting would be done unless there was significant additional deterioration in the economic picture. It is very easy to get caught on the sideline waiting for rates to bounce back.  We think it is far safer to lock your loan and then renegotiate should the market bounce back.  If the market does improve dramatically, we are able to renegotiate once and get within .375 points in closing costs of current market. For example, if the market improves to 5.625% with 0 points, we can renegotiate once to 5.625% with .375 points. If you would like to lock with us, the first step is to be pre-approved. You can access a short application form at  http://www.ironharbor.com/xSites/Mortgage/IronHarbor/Content/UploadedFiles/Iron%20Harbor%20Short%20Application.pdf