by Calculated Risk on 10/12/2011 11:31:00 PM

From the Irish Times: Up to 10,000 homeowners could enter 'mortgage to rent' scheme

The Inter-Departmental Working Group on Mortgage Arrears, which published its widely anticipated report yesterday, has proposed the introduction of two “mortgage to rent” social housing schemes. These would mean approved housing agencies taking ownership of homes in specific circumstances or the leasing of houses by banks to local authorities, which would in turn rent them to former owners.
...
The report ... stressed that there would be no blanket debt or negative equity forgiveness. Defending the decision not to implement a blanket forgiveness scheme, the report states it would cost some €14 billion to clear negative equity in Irish mortgage portfolios, while tackling those home loans taken out between 2006 and 2008 would cost in the region of €10 billion.

Dean Baker and others have proposed a similar plan for the U.S. (Here is Dean Baker's 2009 proposal). There was some discussion a few months ago about converting some homeowners to renters, but I haven't heard anything about it lately.

The U.S. population is roughly 50 times the size of Ireland, so a similar plan would be for 500 thousand homeowners. A blanket forgiveness more would probably cost $1 trillion or more in the U.S. (won't happen in the U.S. either).