Lance from Harlem 26.2, a must read for those who love running, Harlem, Central Park, or the inspiration of someone who goes balls-out after their goal, sends along this excerpt from New York Magazine on how the subprime mortgage crisis may affect Harlem:

Well, it looks a lot better than it did in the high-crime years, and despite Harlem's fast and recent rise, there are just eight foreclosures on the docket. Still, trouble's brewing: According to the 2006 "State of New York City's Housing and Neighborhoods" report published by the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, *30 percent of refinance loans in Central Harlem in 2005 fell in the subprime category*; 10.8 percent in East Harlem; and 10.4 percent in Hamilton Heights. (The Upper East Side's rate, by comparison, is 1.6 percent.) Yes, some Australian mogul may have set a record by paying $12 million for the penthouse at 111 Central Park North, but "it's an emerging market, and that's where a lot of the subprime lending starts," explains Miller. "You have people priced out of lower Manhattan squeezing and making it work with less than a prime mortgage." A decent number of those people won't be able to make their payments when interest rates rise; that means sudden fire sales; that in turn brings oversupply, driving prices down. That Central and East Harlem are packed with new condos can't help, either: In 2005, the Department of Buildings issued 940 new certificates of occupancy in these areas, nearly double the number given out on the Upper West Side. *Brownstone owners in West Harlem are going to be best off*; many buyers of new condos, particularly those whose developers have vanished and left them with leaking pipes and buckling floors, have somewhat more to worry about.

New York Magazine: Neighborhood Watch

So what can someone with a subprime loan do about their situation? I would highly recommend looking into NACA to refinance. NACA is a non-profit organization providing fixed rate, 30 year mortgages at a lower interest rate than what most people will get from a standard bank package. They also help people with subprime mortgages refinance at these great rates, even if one's credit is not good.

When working for an elected official in Harlem, I helped NACA set up a number of home buying workshops so that people in Harlem could pruchase and make gentrification work for them. This was hardly four years ago, but there were many apartments people could buy for $362,000 or less, the NACA loan cap.

Although one is hard pressed to find something for $362,000 now, for those who bought back then with a subprime loan, NACA's refinancing package could be the different between going broke and keeping your home.