It's very common. It's called a Life Estate. Most often, it is used when passing a property to one's children before your passing, so that it isn't a major problem during probate.
When it isn't passed to family, it is a good way to get ownership of an asset, often at a very favorable price... as long as you don't mind waiting a while to make it fully yours. Corporations taking the long view are an obvious entity to be interested in this kind of purchase.
Here in Seattle there is a guy that lives on the edge of a city park - pretty wild park with steep terrain, big trees, some walking paths. He didn’t want some mega-mansion going up once he died, so he sold it to the city park system and he gets to stay until he dies or off to a nursing home.
The city probably didn’t even have to pay full price, seeing as he gets to live there for another 5 to 15 years or whatever. But - even if they did, today’s prices will no doubt be much less than what it would be in the future.
Hmm - I’m guessing this is something like those “reverse mortgages” I hear about on the radio. Although I’m betting those things cut the homeowner pretty short and rip them off. Although I guess if you just want to stay in your home until you die and need the cash, and have no heirs, then who cares.