At Vantage Mortgage Brokers, Andy Harris argues that transparency and compliance are more than ideals - they're operational necessities
In a mortgage market where regulatory ambiguity and competitive pressure often blur ethical lines, Andy Harris, founder of Vantage Mortgage Brokers in Oregon, has built a business model that leans the other way - deliberately.
“There’s no pressure when you remove the conflicts of interest,” Harris said. “You’re not selling. You’re educating.”
Harris, a 23-year veteran of the industry, left the retail channel in the mid-2000s after what he describes as a reckoning with its incentives. He launched his independent brokerage in 2007 - just before the financial crisis - and has held to a clear set of principles ever since: fiduciary duty, client-first transparency, and non-negotiable compliance with federal law.
A structural commitment to independence
At the heart of Harris’s model is a broker structure built to eliminate what he sees as the industry’s most persistent ethical failures: lender steering, misaligned compensation, and opaque pricing.
“Too many originators are influenced by how they’re paid,” Harris said. “If your compensation changes based on which lender you choose, that’s a conflict. And those conflicts are everywhere.”
By design, Vantage Mortgage Brokers embraces competition among wholesale lenders, presents all options to clients, and separates originator incentives from lender selection. “We’re structured to operate as fiduciaries - working solely for the borrower,” he said. “And that structure has to be reinforced with internal policy, training, and daily discipline.”
The problem with unchecked growth
While Harris acknowledges the business pressure many firms face, he argues that growth-at-any-cost recruiting is driving the worst behavior in the industry - especially among firms built around non-producing managers.
“If you’re not producing and you rely on overrides from other people’s production, that creates a dangerous incentive,” he said. “It leads to illegal compensation plans, 1099 schemes, and steering.”
At Vantage, new team members are not recruited - they approach the firm. Every originator is an experienced producer, and Harris remains active in production himself. “We don’t need people. We want good people,” he said. “There’s a difference.”
This lean, production-oriented structure, he argues, minimizes ethical risk by removing managerial dependence on volume quotas. “We’re selective by design,” he added. “And that allows us to maintain standards others struggle with.”
Education as enforcement
While all licensed originators are required to complete annual continuing education, Harris believes that’s a floor, not a ceiling.
“Ethics training isn’t just something you check off once a year,” he said. “It has to be embedded in your systems, your procedures, and your decision-making process.”
That includes clear policies on compliance, a documented set of best practices, and leadership that models the standards it expects. “If your team doesn’t share your values, no policy will fix it,” he said. “And frankly, it’s easy to spot who doesn’t belong.”
Enforcement gaps and long-term risk
Harris is outspoken about what he sees as a breakdown in federal enforcement. “We’re seeing violations that aren’t just unethical - they’re illegal,” he said. “But until regulators act, the behavior won’t stop.”
He points to violations of Dodd-Frank-era rules around loan originator compensation, steering, and Qualified Mortgage (QM) thresholds as systemic - and often overlooked. “The laws are there,” he said. “But in the absence of enforcement, firms will push the envelope.”
That creates exposure for individual originators as well. “If you’re being paid improperly, you can’t claim ignorance,” Harris said. “You can be held liable even if you didn’t know it was illegal.”
Advocacy on multiple platforms
Beyond running his brokerage, Harris has long been active in industry advocacy. He served as president of the Oregon Association of Mortgage Professionals and held leadership roles with the National Association of Mortgage Brokers. He also leads Mortgage Brokers Unite, a private Facebook group launched in 2015 to share best practices among independent, compliant brokers.
“Everything I do publicly - whether it’s social media or industry work - is rooted in ethics,” he said. “Not just talking about them, but calling out violations where they exist.”
His posts often challenge common industry practices, drawing both support and pushback. But for Harris, the message is consistent: growth should never outpace accountability.
“If the majority of players in a market don’t follow the rules, that’s not a grey area,” he said. “That’s a problem. And until enforcement catches up, it’s up to the ethical players to draw the line.”
