A Back-To-Jefferson Solution For The Housing Crisis

How do you sell real estate today when you are unsure of its pricing and legal procedures? Assuming that the government stops changing foreclosure rules, this unusual proposal could get rid of the millions of houses in inventory.

Shortly before Thomas Jefferson died, he tried to pay debts that amounted to $80,000 by disposing of land he owned through the use of a lottery, a well-established method at the time. He explained the rationale for such financing: "An article of property, insusceptible of division at all, or not without great diminution of its worth, is sometimes of so large value that no purchaser can be found ... The lottery is here a salutary instrument for disposing of it, where men run small risks for a chance of obtaining a high prize." This should not come as a surprise.

Reuven Brenner holds the Repap Chair at Desautels' Faculty of Management, McGill University. This article draws on his World of Chance (2008, with G. A. Brenner and Aaron Brown).

Read full article: Forbes.com, November 4, 2010