Say it ain't so!

According to the Wall Street Journal (Housing Pain Gauge: Nearly 1 in 6 Owners 'Under Water'):

About 75.5 million U.S. households own the homes they live in. After a housing slump that has pushed values down 30% in some areas, roughly 12 million households, or 16%, owe more than their homes are worth, according to Moody's Economy.com.

The comparable figures were roughly 4% under water in 2006 and 6% last year, says the firm's chief economist, Mark Zandi, who adds that "it is very possible that there will ultimately be more homeowners under water in this period than any time in our history."

Among people who bought within the past five years, it's worse: 29% are under water on their mortgages, according to an estimate by real-estate Web site Zillow.com.

Not good.

But it does still leave the great majority (almost 85%) of home owners nationally doing okay:

More owners nationally own their home free and clear than are under water, which is clearly important to note, but I don't mean to take away from the severity of the overall problem.  Although being under water does not mean an owner cannot afford payments and will become a foreclosure, it does typically raise the likelihood of foreclosure to some degree.  The good news is that more and more lenders are realizing that foreclosure is often not the best option and more are open to finding other solutions such as short sales and mortgage work outs.  That keeps at least some of the foreclosures off of the market, removing some of the drag on housing prices.

As usual - everything in this "national" housing market is local.  Boston region info (single family sales data) shows that prices are down to September 2003 levels (off by about 14.8% from the peak) and 13.3% of owners are under water.

Here is a look at other cities from the Wall Street Journal: