I have family in California that had to deal with squatters on a rental property. It cost them ~400k, which included their kids college funds and retirement.

Costs were 3 years of lost rent while they paid the mortgage 250k damages done by the squatters, plus legal fees.

You are probably right in the majority of cases,but I do think it is a mistake to automatically discount financial harm as less.

If I invest 20 years of my income in a property that someone has stolen, that is a significant loss to me in human terms as well as financially.

I would be open to treating the destruction of such property equivalent to the taking of an equivalent amount of one's life.

You've also paid for your primary residence. But on top of that, you need it to live in. So it's a worse situation, generally speaking.

It take a huge amount of materials and labor to build, and returns value slowly over time. Depending on the inputs and returns, this can either create positive or negative value.