Backintheday, one of the real estate bloggers I followed tried to put together a REIT. The idea was all these people in danger of being kicked out of their houses were the ones most likely to take decent care of them. So the plan was to buy their houses as troubled assets, then lease them back to the owners and only the owners for the equivalent of whatever their rent was, or whatever they could now pay or whatever. Once they'd paid back their purchase price plus ten or fifteen percent, the house reverted to them. He saw it as a way to make money and keep the country whole. Instead Wall Street said "what if we take that idea... and work with me here... just kick them out? Then we rent them back to who the fuck ever at whatever the market will bear?"