June 30, 2007 (LPAC)--On June 29 U.S. Federal regulators tightened rules for lenders issuing risky sub-prime mortgages, but it may be a case of too little too late to stanch the hemorrhage of foreclosures blanching the economies of many communities in the Greater Washington D.C. area, a region Lyndon LaRouche has dubbed "Ground Zero" of the U.S. housing bubble.

The new guidelines are aimed at the 8,000 Federally regulated lenders--only a sub-group of all loan-makers, and require such lenders to underwrite loans based on the higher adjusted loan rates, not the low "teaser" rates used now. Furthermore, lenders must give borrowers 60 days to refinance without penalty, before higher loan rates go into effect, according to the June 30th Wall Street Journal .

According to extensive coverage in the June 30 Washington Post , the collapse of sub-primes has already led to a growing horde of the newly homeless in areas around the nation's capital. In areas from Leesburg to Ft. Washington in Virginia, and including Howard County in Maryland, foreclosures are skyrocketing, and igniting a secondary exodus of panicked homeowners scurrying to leave before the foreclosures impact their already-precarious housing values.

Realtytrac data by zipcode for the D.C. area pinpointed the local hotspots for the meltdown:

* Fort Washington in Prince George's County accumulated 80 pending foreclosures this year, twice the rate of a year ago.

* Herndon in Fairfax County, registered 75 foreclosures in one zipcode, eight times last year's rate.

* The Leesburg area in Loudoun County has seen foreclosures 10 times the 2006 same-period rate.

* Howard County Maryland had foreclosures shoot from one in 2006 to 157 from January to May of 2007.