No Subprime Meltdowns In These Towns

The subprime mortgage meltdown is impacting neighborhoods across the country. At the same time, job cuts are further stressing the economy. As a result, home foreclosure rates have spiked and neighborhoods throughout the U.S. are poorer for it.

Are you thinking of moving, but looking for a neighborhood that promises more welcome wagons than "For Sale" signs? To aid your search, MainStreet asked RealtyTrac, a real estate tracking Web site, to compile data of the cities and metropolitan areas experiencing the lowest volume of foreclosures in February. We took the figures and compared them to employment rates supplied by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, and then picked the top five cities with the lowest foreclosure rates that had a preliminary unemployment rate for February below or equal to the national average of 4.8%.

Here are MainStreet’s top five cities surviving the mortgage meltdown:

LUBBOCK, Texas

The birth place of Buddy Holly has an unemployment rate of 3.3%. “Not as many lenders were putting people in homes they could not afford and the local economy has been stable,” says Cade Fowler, association executive for the Lubbock Association of Realtors. Texas Tech University and Lubbock Lake are some of the offerings in this town where only one out of every 57,485 homes has experienced a foreclosure.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.

Here you'll find Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, and only one out of every 41,715 homes in financial trouble. An unemployment rate of just 3.0% may be the reason behind the real estate success. “The economy [in Charlottesville] has been relative stable and we’re a little more isolated”, says Marjorie Adams, realtor at Remax Assured Properties. “It’s still a buyers market."