Five Communities That Have Avoided The Subprime Meltdown

"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."

However, some communities have managed to avoid high foreclosure rates, including Lubbock, Texas, Charlottesville, Va, and Burlington, Vt. Employment rates in these towns are holding strong as well, boding well for their future.

To compile the list, "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%."