Title: Innovations in mortgage markets and increased spending on housing
Description: Innovations in the mortgage market since the mid-1990s have effectively reduced a number of  financing constraints. Coinciding with these innovations, we document a significant change  in the propensity for households to own their homes, as well as substantial increases in the  share of household income devoted to housing. These changes in housing expenditures are  especially large for those groups that faced the greatest financial constraints, and are robust  across the changing composition of households and their geographic location. We present  evidence that young, constrained households may have used newly designed mortgages to  finance their increased expenditures on housing.