It does explain it. They were long because they thought the housing market could never crash. It doesn&#x27;t really matter how bad someone&#x27;s credit is, if the value of homes keeps going up the banks will not lose money. They might put nothing down and then pay their mortgage for 5 years, then default, but the home&#x27;s gone up 15 or 20% in value so the bank will resell it and be made whole.