Mortgage companies didnt "create" these loans, Wall Street did. The loans were created, presented to brokers to sell as much of as possible and then securitized into large blocks and sold to hedge funds and various other investors worldwide who could not get enough of them...are there crappy lenders out there? sure, most have gone out of business or are on the way out but all the brokers did was go out and sell what the big money investors said they wanted to buy...once the option for all these small/medium and even large ie countrywide, lenders to package and resell these loans disappeared so did the liquidity in many market areas outside of just mortgages...much blame to go around but the basis of the chaos rests in the hands of Wall Street IMO...cheers