College Towns Are Islands of Stability

November 5 — Here at Topretirements.com we spend a lot of time writing about why college towns make such great retirement communities. Now there’s yet another reason to choose a college town to retire in - they are much less likely to be involved in the sub-prime mortgage mess that is wreaking havoc on so many other real estate markets.

A recent New York Times article, “College Towns Escape the Pain”, reported that college towns have among the lowest sub-prime or high cost loans of any places in the country. The people who live in college towns might be smarter, but they also have a lot of other things going for them. Stable employment, big medical centers, and a strong real estate market - in part propelled by retiring baby boomers - are also contributing to strength. The bottom line is that college towns are very strong economically and represent a solid real estate investment.

Figures from the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council show that almost all of the 10 metropolitan areas with the nation’s lowest percentage of sub-prime loans in 2006 were college towns. For example,here are the lowest 5: Ithaca (NY), Iowa City (IA), Boulder (CO), Morgantown (WV) and Madison (WI). Whereas the U.S. average was 29%, Ithaca had only 11% subprime loans. Here is more information about the best college town retirements. Another site worth visiting is www.collegetownlife.com