You have a point, but status symbols are positional goods so often their high cost doesn't correspond to a large use of resources. If one rich guy buys a painting from another rich guy, ten million dollars changes hands but that's it; ten million dollars worth of stuff isn't being used up.

This isn't always the case - I presume an expensive yacht really does take a lot of resources to build. And this mansion took resources to build too. Still, the most valuable thing about the mansion is its location - the same mansion but not in Beverly Hills might be worth ten times less. I think it's more like the painting than like the yacht.