It was a little different than being talked into a larger loan.
People were financing 105% or more through fancy mechanisms, getting interest-only loans, and then couldn't pay them when they adjusted after the 5 year period was up.
In order to even afford these interest-only payments, putting nothing down, they were avoiding PMI through other mechanisms as well. So a lot of these people couldn't have afforded more than what they had.
The lenders were also slicing and dicing the mortgages so many ways, packaging bad loans with good loans, that it was bound to crash and burn, which it did. This is where the bank bailouts came into play a few years ago.
It's so widespread that it's become everybody's problem now. Normally, the bank would take the home and the family would have to vacate the premise, but when it's hundreds of thousands of families, it can't happen that way.
So the responsible ones, who didn't borrow more than they could afford, are really the ones who get screwed.
I'm not talking about the percentage of folks who lost value on their houses after buying during the height of the market. I know several people that did that -- bought condos for $180K and they're worth under $30K right now (South Florida). However, they could afford the $180K. That was a bad decision on their part.
I'm talking about the percentage that bought more than they should've bought in the first place.