He sounds like a disciple of Dave Ramsey, like me. Paid off home mortgages are the BMWs of today.
My BIL age 59 should have been so wise. Their home on Long Island was purchased in 98 at 125/k but the dum dum kept piling up credit card debt and then rolling it over to the refinance of the home twice. it got so bad they had to foreclose on the house-— what a waste. I gave him the Dave Ramsey ‘Total Money Makeover’ book back around 2006. Pains me that they didnt wise up and fix those problems. They could have had a nice build up of equity instead. Oh well....being stupid has its consequences.