Dying of cancer. When you see a guy in Malibu wreck his Ferrari, I don't think a lot of people have the same "kind" of sympathy, as they shouldn't. Let's be honest, you feel worse for the lady in your ward dying of cancer or someone's Ferrari?

Few factors here

1. We value human life more that luxury items-normal

2. People don't have a lot of sympathy for someone losing a material object that they could never afford (did he say he retired and has kids in Middle school?). I think we call this "envy".-normal but not spiritually healthy.

The truth of the matter is that I bet the guy, assuming he isn't a billionaire, ends up not paying the mortgage and the bank eats the loss and he ends up with bad credit. Someone like that isn't typically going to be able to just pay on a million dollar home they don't live in. So, the end result is what? He moves into a 7,000 sq foot rental because he can't qualify for a loan.

Of course if he bought the house outright with cash, the above situation isn't valid and it really really sucks!!!