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Both borrowers and lenders in the sub-prime mortgage market are wishing they had listened to the old sayings : neither a borrower nor a lender be. Last year people with poor credit ratings borrowed billion in mortgages, a figure that is about 20% of the home-lone market. It includes people who cannot afford to meet the mortgage payments on expensive home they have bought, and low-income buyers. In some cases, the latter could not even meet the first payment. Lenders include banks like HSBC which may have lost almost billion. Both sides can be blamed. Lenders, after the 2-3 percentage point premium they could charge, offered loans known as 'lair loans' with no down payments and without any income verification to people with bad credit histories. They believed that rising house prices would cover them in the event of default.