As others have said, if you have no reason to leave and you can afford the payment, there really isn't anything to worry about. Some of my clients have had to sell at a loss because life circumstances forced them to move. There are other options besides paying the balance and selling. Short sales relieve some of the financial burden if you need to sell and in some circumstances even strategic default is a sound option.

IMO the core of this problem isn't that real estate prices are in decline.... Any investment has that element of risk. The problem is the culture and lending practices that encourage anyone with a pulse to buy a house. Over the last 6 years I would guess that 80% of my clients bought a home with less than 10% down...probably half with less than 5%. Hell, I bought my first condo with a zero-documentation interest only loan.

Also FWIW, zillow is pretty grossly inaccurate around here.

:edit: to add punctuation and paragraph breaks, posting from my phone :ugh: