What Did Homeowners Do with Home Equity Borrowing? Contemporaneous and Long‐Term Effects

Using a panel sample from the Panel Study Income Dynamics (1999–2015), I find that homeowners' contemporaneous spending and nonhome wealth increased with home equity withdrawals, but their longer term spending and wealth declined if their home equity was extracted during the housing boom period. Following Hurst and Stafford's (2004) definition of liquidity constraint, I find that the constrained homeowners' contemporaneous spending increased less, while their financial wealth increased more than those of the unconstrained. Unconstrained homeowners invested more than constrained homeowners in nonhome real estate and businesses. In the long run, the consumption spending of both groups persistently declined, while their wealth recovered from initial declines.