Homeowners with negative equity have less incentive to invest in their property. They face a debt overhang: in expectation, some value created by equity investments in the property will go to the lender. Using rich microdata on household expenditures, I show that debt overhang plays an important role in household financial decisions. I find that homeowners with negative equity cut back substantially on mortgage principal payments, home improvements and home maintenance spending. At the same time, these households show no difference in durable spending on automobiles, furniture and home appliances, investments that are not attached to the home. The decline in mortgage principal payments is particularly large for negative equity homeowners in non-recourse states, where strategic default is more likely because lenders have limited claim on non-housing wealth. Debt overhang, rather than financial constraints, best explains this set of facts. Given the prevalence of negative home equity in today’s housing market, the results suggest that home prices will grow more slowly in the future because of underinvestment. In addition, the potential deadweight loss due to home foreclosures is only part of the economic inefficiency that follows the spree of mortgage borrowing in the 2000s and the subsequent real estate price decline.

We document a case of price-increasing competition; banks and other depository institutions charge more for overdraft credit and are less likely to offer free checking when payday credit is available. We attribute this rise in prices to adverse selection created by the flat fee pricing of overdraft credit. That pricing favors depositors prone to large overdrafts, so when payday credit (priced per dollar borrowed) is available, depositors prone to small overdrafts switch. That selection works against banks; large overdrafts cost more to supply and, if depositors default, banks lose more, so prices rise. Consistent with this adverse selection hypothesis, we document that the average dollar amount per returned check at depository institutions increases when depositors have access to payday credit. Our findings illuminate competition and pricing frictions in the large, yet largely unstudied, small dollar loan market.