When Mark Severance entered the mortgage industry more than 25 years ago, he knew it was the right career move. Already a banking veteran, he’d navigated his way through a number of various positions in financial institutions, including branch manager and regional manager in operations.

“After working in a bunch of different areas, I gravitated toward mortgage lending,” Severance said. “I found it rewarding.”

Severance, who serves as the regional sales manager and assistant vice president at Regency Mortgage Corp. in South Burlington, Vt., originally started his independent brokerage – Summit Financial Center – in 1989. In 2008, his company became a branch of Merrimack Mortgage Co., and in May of this year, the brokerage moved over to Regency Mortgage Corp.

While the mortgage industry can be frustrating at times, Severance loves his job.

“When somebody is trying to buy a house, it’s a big deal, and you can help them do it,” he said. “Sometimes that [takes] a little bit of extra effort, but when you got one done, you know you made a difference.” Severance is especially proud of a deal he brokered at the end of last year. He was working with a young man who had just started his own landscaping businesses.

“I could see he was a hard worker and was responsible,” Severance said. “He didn’t really quite fit all of the technical requirements, so I really had to go to bat for him.”

Since that mortgage closing, Severance said, the landscaper’s business has flourished and he is a proud home owner.

“It feels good to get it done,” he said.

Changed Industry

While Severance has many success stories that he is proud of, he knows that the industry has changed since he wrote his first mortgage in 1978.

“When I got into the mortgage business, there was no automated underwriting. Files were underwritten by people, and people looked at paperwork and determined if someone was likely to repay or not,” he said. “You made a loan based on a professional assessment.”

Credits scores do not sit well with Severance.

“Some make sense and some don’t,” he said. “When you can’t do financing for someone because of a credit score, it makes me wild.”

Severance believes that the mortgage industry has come to rely on credit scores so much that people don’t even look at the credit reports anymore, “turning the responsibility on the machines,” he said.

Just like many others working in the mortgage industry, Severance blames overregulation for the problems consumers and brokers are facing today.

“The problem is each regulation results in more costs to the consumer. I think there are some good things we have done [along with the] poor things, [but] the consumer is paying for it,” he said.

‘More Accountable’

Severance believes, however, that requiring licensing of individual loan officers is a positive requirement. He added, however, that he doesn’t think it extends far enough since it doesn’t apply to banks.

“It weeded out the non-serious players [and] makes everybody more accountable, and that’s a good thing,” he commented.

When it comes to improving the mortgage industry, there are two things Severance believes needs to happen. The first is getting regulators who have experience dealing with consumers, rather than being mere paper-pushers.

The other is the dissolution of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

“Those two entities have dominated our business for years and years, and over the last several years they have been a disaster,” Severance said.

“There’s a lot of really good people – honest and responsible [in the mortgage industry],” Severance added.

Going forward, he said, he wants to “make an impact and have some sense of sensitivity” to buyers who are attempting to purchase homes.