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To: bobby beara who wrote (8879)	3/26/1998 4:12:00 PM
From: Bucky Katt	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116764

BB--This dovetails with my earlier debt post>>>Refinancing wave to drive 1998 mortgage volume U.S. consumers refinancing to save on borrowing costs propelled mortgage banking business to record levels in 1997 and market participants predict more of the same for 1998, if interest rates remain at low levels. According to Paul Reid, executive vice president at the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, 1998 will be a banner year for mortgage bankers. Reid said this year there will be $1.06 trillion in mortgage origination volume, up from $850 billion in 1997. In 1993, he recalled, that total topped $1 trillion. ''If refinancings continues at their current pace, they'll account for 50 percent of total volume,'' Reid said to attendees here at the 15th Annual Regional Conference of Mortgage Bankers Associations. ''I have not seen the kind of volume we have seen in the last 10 weeks,'' said Ronald Pasquini, first vice president of Residential Lending at CFS Bank of Woodhaven, New York. One East Coast-based lender, who declined to be named, said monthly savings of $50 to $60 can be enough of an incentive to get consumers to refinance. ''The public keeps getting inundated with financial information ... people are very savvy,'' said Theresa Viti, assistant vice president at Withers & Co., Inc. of New Rochelle, New York. The East Coast lender agreed, ''the broker has made the consumer much more sophisticated.'' Meanwhile, another lender reported seeing that borrowers have come back to refinance, although they may have already refinanced as recently as six months ago. ''Hunting for the best rates may have even become the chic thing to do,'' according to Robert Withers, president of Withers & Co. Inc. ''The cost of refinancing alone has dropped significantly and these savings have been passed on to borrowers,'' he said. In fact, participants reported that refinancings can be done without closing costs. Withers said many refinancing fees are being waved because once-costly steps have become less expensive. He said title report work, which once involved attorneys, is now being processed by settlement companies. Also, Withers said, ''Some people are doing drive-by appraisals'' of the property being refinanced.'' Elizabeth Squillante, a wholesale account executive at BankAmerica Mortgage, a unit of Bank of America, reported that borrowers are either refinancing from a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage into a lower 30-year fixed-rate mortgage or into a 15-year fixed-rate loan. According to Squillante, the current refinance wave does not offer savings as dramatic as those enjoyed by consumers during the 1993-94 refinance wave. The current environment, Squillante noted, has borrowers cutting their rates from as high as 8.0 percent to 7.0 percent. Conrad Peditto, wholesale account executive at BankAmerica, said some borrowers moving from 30-year fixed-rate mortgage products into 15-year fixed-rate loans may be members of the baby-boomer generation who are looking to pay off their mortgage loans in time for retirement. Peditto noted that mild weather and euphoria from gains in the stock market may be fueling demand in the U.S. housing market. In the meantime, some B and C lenders said low rates are not heating up refinancing but they noted refinancings are mostly motivated by a need for debt consolidation. According to Andy Vinarski, an account executive in the alternative credit division of Crestar Mortgage Corp., borrowers in the B and C arena are looking to consolidate mortgage loans with auto and credit card debt.