That’s true, but before you try to shift the blame onto the homeowners, remember that these mortgages were intentionally issued to extremely risky borrowers, and then that risk was intentionally obfuscated when the loans were collateralized. The fault cannot be laid entirely on the borrowers, which is what I sense you’re trying to do here.

Investors bought a lie packaged by the financial institutions. They shouldn’t have believed in the first place because the risk was junk-level but not sold as such.

No but thats the point, they were always in trouble. sub prime were sub prime.

Everyone thought they were ok because they didn't look at, or were not shown the, default rate of their instrument. The risk profile was deliberately obscured, or the people wilfully ignored it.

they were valuable until it wasnt.