Solano Real Estate Scene: Jim Porter
Article By: Jim Porter – September 4, 2026
Working 9 to 5 selling real estate
On Jan. 1, 1980, I was promoted to manager at Beneficial Finance just a week after my 21st birthday.
Of the 2,000 branch managers nationwide, I was the youngest and believe me folks, Beneficial was a 60-year-old conservative financial institution, so this was a big deal.
My first assignment was a tiny two-person branch in Pacifica, and after a year I got promoted to a large San Francisco branch on Mission Street. As I climbed the corporate ladder, I remember looking at the photos in the Corporate Annual Report and I noticed 100% of the executives and board members were men until 1983 when a woman was promoted to senior vice president of personnel and her photo showed up in the annual report along with all the men.
I left to become a mortgage broker in 1986 and later learned that pretty much all the Fortune 500 companies were run by men back then. It was common for big financial institutions to promote women to token leadership roles like VP of Personnel or Administration.
In 1980, Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton starred in a hit movie called “9 to 5” about three women who just had enough of the glass ceiling and the sexual harassment and kicked the boss’s ass. Ironically, in my final year at Beneficial, my boss got promoted, and a terrific woman was promoted to replace him. I think she was one of only three female district managers out of 200 nationwide.
Since 1986, I have been working for women because 75% of the Realtors I work with are women, and in a real estate transaction, the Realtors are in charge, and the escrow officer and the loan officer answers to the Realtor, like it or not. Sure, the lender is important, but without the Realtor showing the property and selling the house, no one would need a mortgage. As I have said a thousand times, the Realtors have what the buyer wants, and the lender has what the buyer needs and doesn’t really want.
Over the past 40 years, I have worked for many top-producing women, and the best of the best are the saleswomen who care more about the referrals they will get from their buyer five years from now than the one commission today. Many of these women had a boss for a minute or two, but then decided to be their own boss and really became somebody special.
My Realtor friends who have been building a successful business for 20 to 40 years have never worked 9 to 5 because all the top producers in real estate work at least 50 hours per week, including nights and weekends. Helping people become homeowners is a great way to make a living.
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.
