| Recently homeowners in my corner of Harlem held a | | | | that promised zero interest rates. The scam artists |
| soiree in someone's garden. We form a warm group | | | | who solicited people to over-borrow just didn't |
| of 130 people who represent the changing | | | | approach Harlem as aggressively. Take a look at the |
| neighborhood -- black old-timers with a growing | | | | numbers. Only 0.8 percent of all home-purchases |
| number of whites. Everyone brought a dish or bottle | | | | mortgages in the Hamilton Heights area in 2006 were |
| and the talk over the macaroni was cheerful. Did | | | | sub-prime, versus 34 percent in Bedford-Stuyvesant |
| anyone know a good contractor? How did the Little | | | | and 39 percent in East New York. (EDITORS -- These |
| League do this summer? A door prize, a box of | | | | are the latest available figures.) Refinancing loans from |
| Godiva chocolates, was awarded to the longest | | | | risky lenders were likewise lower here. |
| resident -- Dina Morrison, 93, who has lived with her | | | | "It was all a matter of the assumptions of the |
| older sister in the same place for 67 years. No one | | | | predators," said Dwayne Jones, lending director of the |
| mentioned foreclosures. | | | | Parodneck Foundation, a housing advocacy group. |
| Foreclosure crisis? What crisis? Not in Harlem. | | | | "They did not come to Harlem." He credits the large |
| Harlem is full of the sort of people who are losing their | | | | concentration of organizations like his, as well as social |
| properties all over New York City, namely little old | | | | networks like our homeowners' association, for raising |
| ladies and working-class African-American families. But | | | | awareness among less savvy member of the |
| the nation's black capital has been insulated from the | | | | community. |
| sub-prime meltdown by the very thing usually blamed | | | | Those Harlemites who did borrow more than they |
| for destroying communities of color -- gentrification. | | | | actually owned could take the money and run. That's |
| While the dreaded G word has priced some residents | | | | what our next-door neighbor did. Literally a week |
| out of the 'hood, we've seen a paradoxical upside. The | | | | before the bank jumped to possess her 1888 row |
| house values that have skyrocketed over the past 15 | | | | house, she sold the property for a nice packet to a |
| years in Harlem scared off many predatory lenders | | | | white family and found something cheaper. Granted, it's |
| who targeted other black areas. These $1-million-plus | | | | disruptive to move but she was spared financial ruin. |
| price tags have also given homeowners who are | | | | The added positive effect is that properties like hers |
| struggling to keep apace with mortgage payments the | | | | do not sit vacant during New York's long foreclosure |
| option of selling out before the bank closes in. "There | | | | process. We see a vicious cycle in foreclosure-hit |
| tends to be a tight connection between property | | | | areas, where empty houses sink the cost of those |
| values and foreclosures," explains Josiah Madar, from | | | | nearby. As anyone who lived through Harlem's dark |
| the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy | | | | ghetto days knows, no one wants to live next to a |
| at New York University. | | | | boarded up building that tempts drug dealers to loiter. |
| He and other experts understand little about the | | | | Moreover, few people want to buy a boarded up |
| mechanisms of abusive lending, other than the stark | | | | building with a leaking roof, which is often the case as |
| racial component. Eight of the ten top neighborhoods | | | | banks rarely maintain the properties they seize. |
| hit by foreclosures in the city are overwhelmingly | | | | This is not to say that gentrification is great for |
| non-white. A map representing the worst afflicted | | | | everyone. Of course it has a bad side. Most |
| areas -- among them Bedford-Stuyvesant, East New | | | | Harlemites rent apartments and do not dwell in fancy |
| York, North Bronx, South Jamaica -- says it all. Each | | | | mansions. The locale is losing its status as the last |
| filing is a dot, and the aforementioned areas resemble | | | | outpost of affordability in Manhattan. Those suffering |
| solid metastasizing cancers, with several hundred | | | | are victims not of the white professionals who buy |
| foreclosures each. | | | | shells and fix them up. No, the destructive forces are |
| Yet the area comprising Hamilton Heights, which claims | | | | the big developers who scoop up rent-stabilized |
| some of Harlem's most prized Victorian brownstones, | | | | apartment buildings and then try to force out tenants |
| had just eight foreclosure notices, so few one can | | | | by doing improvements and jacking up the price. Some |
| discern the individual specks. | | | | of these investors borrowed more than the value of |
| It appears that the conmen who besieged other black | | | | their properties, and now risk default. Then what |
| neighborhoods steered away from Harlem, wagering | | | | happens to the residents living on the premises? |
| that anyone who lived in a valuable townhouse would | | | | For the time being, though, homeowners like Dina |
| be too financially sophisticated for their tricks. Unlike in | | | | Morrison are in a good place. There's talk among the |
| the outer boroughs where the racial demographic is | | | | homeowners of a jolly Christmas party, just like every |
| similar but house values lower, Harlem residents didn't | | | | year of plenty. |
| report a barrage of flyers pushed through mail slots | | | | |