The comment you're replying to is pretty inflammatory. Bravo to you for responding in a rational fashion.
About home mortgages — it seems like it would be hard to apply the preferred-share-like structure I described to home mortgage financing. Your house doesn't produce profits that you could share with someone, does it?
Maybe you could sign over a fraction of your total family income in exchange for help buying the house: say, one third of your income for twenty years. But that would still be pretty risky for the investor, even more risky than investing in a hotel, where they have a plausible reason to believe that their investment will produce results. (And I have no idea whether it would be legal, either under the shariah or under civil or common law systems.)
I'm not sure whether to give the quick explanation to that or the proper one - an in-between one is that the income idea won't work because there is no guarantee that e.g. my health will continue OK for twenty years or that my job will remain steady. There would not be the equivalent of an income protection scheme available either.
There are simple methods available in principle based on the real rental value of the home and treating the buyer as a form of renter but in reality all the so called 'islamic' schemes do not actually involve risk sharing and consequently it's hard to be sure that they are indeed 'halal'. BTW on your first point it's Ramadan so if I do lose my patience I've blown it....:-)
About home mortgages — it seems like it would be hard to apply the preferred-share-like structure I described to home mortgage financing. Your house doesn't produce profits that you could share with someone, does it?
Maybe you could sign over a fraction of your total family income in exchange for help buying the house: say, one third of your income for twenty years. But that would still be pretty risky for the investor, even more risky than investing in a hotel, where they have a plausible reason to believe that their investment will produce results. (And I have no idea whether it would be legal, either under the shariah or under civil or common law systems.)