U.S. Debt Surpasses GDP: Why Mortgage Rates Could "Spiral" From Here

On The Market

BiggerPockets

Investing, Education, Business, News

4.8 • 859 Ratings

🗓️ 7 May 2026

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The national debt just hit a dangerous new milestone, surpassing GDP—and the last time this happened, we just ended a world war. You already know the U.S. is heavily in debt—most Americans do—but nobody is asking the right question: at what point does this spiral out of control and force something in the economy to break? Today, Dave is unpacking the next steps and the scenarios that could unfold once our debt reaches a point where our options to solve this become dangerous. And the effects could be massive for real estate investors, unless they begin preparing themselves now. First, we’ll go over how we even got here, what makes up the majority of our national debt, and what we can cut to end this out-of-control spending. Next, the two scenarios, one of which could put real estate investors in a dangerous position. Dave is preparing, starting now, even if the worst effects don’t hit for years. With no sign of either political party meaningfully lowering the debt, this isn’t a matter of “if” real estate is affected, but when. In This Episode We Cover The dangerous new milestone our national debt has just hit (can we reverse course?) What real estate investors need to start doing now to protect their future selves Why mortgage rates could “spiral” up as the U.S. looks for a solution to pay off debt Who’s to blame? Which administrations caused the debt to grow Where 75% of our tax revenue is going (why the debt keeps rising) And So Much More! Links from the Show Join the Future of Real Estate Investing with Fundrise Join BiggerPockets for FREE Join us at the BiggerPockets Conference October 2-4 in Orlando. Buy tickets Sign Up for the On the Market Newsletter Find Investor-Friendly Lenders Dave's BiggerPockets Profile On the Market 413 - Real Estate Isn’t as Safe From Inflation as You Think Grab the Book, Recession-Proof Real Estate Investing Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/on-the-market-422⁠. Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠advertise@biggerpockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The U.S. just crossed a threshold that we haven't seen since 1946.
0:05.9	And it's not a milestone we should be particularly proud of.
0:10.6	Our national debt just surpassed our total gross domestic product.
0:15.9	And the last time this happened was right after five years of fighting a world war. As of last week,
0:23.3	we're at that point again. But what is the cause this time? Why has our debt ballooned so
0:30.9	much in recent decades? And does it even matter? We keep hearing the debt is going up, but by
0:37.0	many measures, the economy is still
0:39.2	resilient. Certainly, there hasn't been any crises in recent years, but debt does matter. And if we
0:46.1	stay on this path, our debt could be a drag on our economy and the housing market for decades to
0:52.2	come. So today on the market, we're going deep into the issue of our national debt.
0:57.8	How we got here, what the recent data shows, what could happen next, and what it all means
1:03.2	for real estate investors.
1:09.6	Hey, everyone, welcome to On the Market. I'm Dave Meyer, chief investment officer at Bigger Pockets.
1:15.4	Today on the show, we're digging into an issue that everyone is surely aware of, our massive national debt, but not many people fully understand.
1:25.7	Or at least understand fully why it's so large, what the current
1:31.0	trajectory is, and what could happen to the economy and to the housing market if our debt
1:37.8	keeps growing. We're doing this now today. We're going to dive into this because last week we
1:43.9	hit this milestone with our
1:45.5	debt. Our debt total is now $31.27 trillion. And our GDP, in other words, the total size of our
1:56.1	economy is $31.2 trillion, so slightly lower, but our debt is now bigger than the entire economy in one
2:05.9	year. And it's not like this milestone in particular, like crossing this particular threshold
2:12.0	triggers anything imminent in the economy, but it's a reminder that our debt is absolutely not under control.
	...

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