Solano Real Estate Scene: Jim Porter
Article By: Jim Porter – September 25, 2026
The Fed considers an unemployment rate between 4% and 5% full employment.
The national rate today is 4.3% and the rate for all of California is 5.4%. Solano County, for some reason, has the highest unemployment rate of all nine Bay Area counties at 5.5%.
In 2019, Solano County was running below 4% unemployment. Then Covid hit and Solano ran up to a high of 15% in 2020, but we recovered nicely to a rate below 4% in April 2022.
An unemployment rate below 4% would usually create a strong real estate market for residential brokers, but low housing inventory stifled the market enthusiasm. The 3% mortgage rate on New Year’s Day 2022 became 6% by Easter 2022.
For the people that purchased or refinanced in 2020 and 2021, the last thing they have been thinking about is selling their house and losing their 3% mortgage rate and payment.
There are more than 28,000 homes free and clear in Solano County and many of these are owned by landlords and seniors. This should be a target market for Realtors because most of the free-and-clear rental properties have already been fully depreciated and now need renovation, and the seniors should have moved down to a one-story home years ago.
The landlords can 1031 exchange into a newer home and take advantage of a whole new depreciation schedule, or possibly exchange into a home that could become their retirement dream home after it is rented for a couple years and beat the capital gains tax.
The seniors can pay cash for a single-story house in an over-55 community and keep their low tax rate under Proposition 19, and nowadays, there are all kinds of bridge loans available that can allow the senior to buy the new house now and sell the old house later.
Because the inventory remains low, now is really a good time to sell because first-time home buyers are still sick and tired of renting and thousands of families that refinanced their three-bedroom house in 2021 now need four to five bedrooms.
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.
