Solano Real Estate Scene: Jim Porter
Article By: Jim Porter – May 8, 2026
Affordability is one of the key issues today for voters and homebuyers in our real estate market and all over the Bay Area and Sacramento region.
The U.S. government has been struggling with affordability, too, since 2001 when the Gross Domestic Product was worth around $10.6 trillion, and our total debt was $5.5 trillion.
Now, for the first time since World War II, the amount of our debt, $39 trillion, is more than the value of our entire GDP at $32 trillion. This is one of the reasons banks and countries all over the world are accumulating hard assets like gold, silver and real estate.
Our debt is up 700% since our last balanced budget in 2001, and now the interest on this debt will cost us nearly $1 trillion next year, which is more than our budget for the military.
Can you imagine owning a house worth $400,000 in 2001 and owing $250,000 on your mortgage and credit cards, and then 25 years later owing $1.75 million in debt and owning a house worth only $1.5 million?
This is called being upside down and moving in the wrong direction. This $300 billion to $500 billion in fraud we are all hearing about is serious business, and not only hurting the taxpayers, but it is also hurting the people who need federal help the most, the middle class buyers who need affordable childcare and first-time homebuyer programs.
Buy a house and get it paid off, invest monthly, and stay out of bad debt like high-rate credit cards and personal loans, and let’s hope the GDP can triple over the next 25 years and the debt can remain the same or go down because if not, we will be burnt toast.
Jim Porter, NMLS No. 276412, is the branch manager and senior loan adviser of Solano Mortgage, NMLS No. 1515497, a division of American Pacific Mortgage Corporation, NMLS No. 1850, licensed in California by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation under the CRMLA / Equal Housing Opportunity. Jim can be reached at 707-449-4777.
Jim Porter, NMLS No. 276412, is the branch manager of Solano Mortgage, NMLS No. 1515497, a division of American Pacific Mortgage Corporation, NMLS No. 1850, licensed in California by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation under the CRMLA / Equal Housing Opportunity. Jim can be reached at 707-449-4777.
