Mortgage Bankers Worry Over the `Clinton Factor'; Industry Leery of a Presidential Change
After two years of booming business, the nation's mortgage bankers are worried that their luck may not last much longer.</br></br>"Our business is doing very well while our economy is struggling," Warren Lasko, executive director of the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, said at the group's annual convention here this week.</br></br>Riding what Lasko and others called "an enormous wave of refinancing," bankers fear the next administration, which they believe will almost certainly be led by a President Bill Clinton, may drive up interest rates by creating new programs and regulations.</br></br>"The Clinton factor has already sparked substantial increases in long-term and intermediate interest rates," said Angelo R. Mozilo, a California mortgage banker and outgoing president of the bankers association.</br></br>Sounding some Bush administration themes, Mozilo said he fears "we will have interest rates back in double digits, which will make it impossible to refinance and difficult to purchase" homes.