In an interview with The Wall St Journal, former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan offers the most innovative solution to the national residential real estate crisis that I have seen. It's wacky but clever: Change immigration rules to let in a lot more skilled immigrants, who will form new US households and buy excess housing inventory.

He tells the Journal the only sustainable way to increase demand for vacant houses is to spur the formation of new households. Admitting more skilled immigrants, who tend to earn enough to buy homes, would accomplish that while paying other dividends to the U.S. economy.

He estimates the number of new households in the U.S. currently is increasing at an annual rate of about 800,000, of whom about one third are immigrants. "Perhaps 150,000 of those are loosely classified as skilled," he said. "A double or tripling of this number would markedly accelerate the absorption of unsold housing inventory for sale - and hence help stabilize prices."

This idea is so far out there that it makes a certain amount of sense. He's saying that if you don't have enough native US demand for houses, import more demand. It will never happen, especially in an election year, but it just might work.