There is an alternative, which doesn’t seem to be common, but isn’t novel: some variant of “rent to own”. If you really squint, a mortgage is a monthly rent to

There is an alternative, which doesn’t seem to be common, but isn’t novel: some variant of “rent to own”. If you really squint, a mortgage is a monthly rent to a bank-owned property. Obviously that’s not what’s happening legally but that’s basically the “UX” of a mortgage. So why have rentals without ownership at all, instead of 0%-down mortgages. Obviously credit-worthiness seems like an issue at first but everyone needs to pay their bills whether it’s to a bank or to a landlord. Our legal system already has plenty of methods to recoup unpaid debts. When it’s to a mortgage, the bank also has the entire equity of the paid off loan to potentially draw down before eviction/foreclosure is necessary. This could be a huge lifeline for people who have a random financial emergency mid-life to avoid eviction. In this hypothetical world of no landlords, I could also see a specific provision of renting just for roommates to simplify this too because a rotating cast of roommates would make equity balancing a nightmare.