Own To Rent
Bank Lawyer’s Blog:
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
—Hunter S. Thompson
Whenever pressure is applied to fragile minds, those minds tend to bend. The latest example of an idea that demands a reply of "get bent" is "Own To Rent." As discussed today by Paul Jackson at Housing Wire, this wonderful concept was first concocted in a place full of the usual suspects: a think tank. Of course, a loon in Congress has seized upon it and is now trying to make it a reality through ill-conceived federal legislation.
We’ve all heard of rent-to-own, but a new idea from House Rep. Raúl
M. Grijalva (D-AZ) would turn troubled former homeowners into renters,
sort of an own-to-rent housing proposal. On Thursday,
Grijalva unveiled the proposal — H.R. 6116, the Saving Family Homes Act
of 2008 — ahead of a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
subcommitee meeting. The Subcommittee on Domestic Policy, headed up by
Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), had scheduled a hearing for Thursday afternoon to discuss how to target federal funds towards managing vacant and abandoned properties.
Grijalva’s proposal would grant homeowners whose mortgages have been
foreclosed the right to petition a judge to allow them to remain in the
home as renters, and pay a fair market rent. The rent would be set by a
court-appointed appraiser and adjusted annually for inflation, the
Congressman’s office said in a press statement.
The proposal would limit eligibility to mortgages on single-family,
principal residences, occupied for at least 2 years, which sold for
less than the median home value in the metropolitan statistical area in
which the home resides, or the median value in the state, if MSA-level
pricing information is not available.
Why does it not surprise me that the hearing at which this idea is likely to be one of…