There are many rent to own plans out there, even had a friend do that with all his rentals. He had one in all the time I knew him renting his "terms" I thought

There are many rent to own plans out there, even had a friend do that with all his rentals. He had one in all the time I knew him renting his "terms" I thought were just fine. However you also have to be very careful around this with regards to banking laws and even some local regulations will discourage it. The problem with taking your equity is that it likely is taxable an taxable on enough levels to make it not worth anyone's while. Now taking you idea further, you have a developer/startup/etc that owns units across the country with a form of interchangeable ownership. I think the logistics might sink it and if the company managing it all ever went bankrupt you would come out on the losing end. I guess it would end up being a more equitable time share?