I also believe that this is a great idea as well , but the question is how to accomplish it ?
I am leaning towards the idea of it costing food (for the new residents) hardwood (for reconstruction ) and gold (for basic necessities like wages ,farm equipment etc) as well as influence ( to use influence on the town/castle to call people to come this looted village ),but i am not sure on how much each should cost though and how long it should take to rebuild the village.
Also if the player is in the village personally supervising the reconstruction of the village depending on the highest engineering skill in the party the speed of rebuilding effort should be affected as well.