Essays in Household and Housing Finance

This thesis consists of three essays in household and housing finance. ``Credit Constraints at Home Purchase and Bias in Hedonic Amenity Valuations'' argues that estimates of amenity values may be biased because households are credit constrained at the time of home purchase. I propose and implement a way to correct the bias in the estimates. ``Mortgage Lending Limits and Housing Demand: Evidence from Bunching in FHA Borrowing'' adapts the bunching literature to measure the loan-to-value elasticity of housing demand. I implement this estimator in FHA data and argue that this approach better distinguishes the role of credit constraints from the role of beliefs about housing returns. ``Housing Wealth Management at Retirement'' documents predictable refinancing behavior at the social security claim threshold. I argue that this behavior is driven by a demand for liquid assets in retirement and note that households may store excess wealth in housing relative to a rational benchmark.