"A Way to Make People Buy Homes Again"

The idea that making people buy homes will help the economy recover is an example of a modern day "cargo cult":

'The primary association in cargo cults is between the divine nature of "cargo" (manufactured goods) and the advanced, non-native behavior, clothing and equipment of the recipients of the "cargo". Since the modern manufacturing process is unknown to them, members, leaders, and prophets of the cults maintain that the manufactured goods of the non-native culture have been created by spiritual means, such as through their deities and ancestors, and are intended for the local indigenous people, but that the foreigners have unfairly gained control of these objects through malice or mistake. Thus, a characteristic feature of cargo cults is the belief that spiritual agents will, at some future time, give much valuable cargo and desirable manufactured products to the cult members.'

In this particular case, it is economics rather than "the modern manufacturing process" that is unknown to the "members, leaders and prophets of the cult", but the essential error is the same: trying to acquire the end product of a process by miraculous means rather than through the hard work and knowledge necessary to implement the process in question.