Home Is Where the Help Is

Car companies did it. Airlines did it, too. Now, in an effort to ease open the wallets of skittish consumers, the real estate industry is offering assurances: If you lose your job, they'll pay your mortgage for you.

Taylor-Morrison, an Arizona-based home builder, is launching its Rest Assured Mortgage Protection Program in its northern Florida properties, which includes cities like Orlando and Jacksonville. The program gives new home buyers up to six months of mortgage payments — up to $2,500 — during the term of their coverage if they involuntarily lose their job.

In California, another area hit hard by the mortgage crisis, the developers of Soma Grand, a plush San Francisco condo complex, are offering to pay six months of mortgage up to $4,000 in the event a layoff within two months of buying at the property.

It's a great idea for responsible homeowners who need a little extra nudge to get them off the fence. But does anyone smell a whiff of irony here? Is it weird that developers are luring buyers into the market with the the message, "If you can't afford it for a while, it's okay"? Wasn't the first domino that fell during this recession — home buyers defaulting on mortgages they couldn't afford? Isn't this the reason these assurance programs are being offered in the first place? How soon we forget.