If you scroll to the bottom of the article, they post their sources, including studies published in peer reviewed journals. I’m sure most of us see this headline and go, “Duh,” but here we have hard data. Every time our billionaire and political overlords wring their hands about birthrates, the collective response from all of us should be, “fuck you, pay me, or kick rocks.”
Commodification is not the right word here. Financialization is the usual one.
Commodification implies that housing is being mass produced and prices are dropping as profit margins fall. That’s clearly not what’s happening.
Financialization implies that housing has become an investment that is increasingly targeted by the finance industry. This is actually happening a lot more than people think. Finance companies have full time real estate staff who are out there buying up housing on a daily basis.