Instead of people buying a house because they need a home, they are purchasing the house as a way to make more money. Instead of living in the house, they rent it out, and the renters just end up paying the mortgage. The owner holds the property for a certain amount of time, then sells the house after it appreciates and makes a profit. Houses that they already own can be used to leverage for more loans to purchase even more. Houses are no longer seen as a place to live, or a home, they are now seen as a way to generate income. If people that have money keep buying more and more houses without living in them, they end up creating scarcity, which drives up prices. Commodification is the process of turning something, such as a good, service, idea, or cultural artifact, into a commodity that can be bought and sold in a market. This often changes the item's original meaning or significance by transforming its social or cultural value into an economic one based on supply, demand, and price. Now, the very things we need just to survive, food, shelter, water, and medical care are being comodified to pump as much profit from it as possible. Juxtapose this with wage stagnation despite increased productivity in the past century and inflation, it's pretty clear that corporate entities would rather see us dead for short term profits than keep us as customers.