We split our time between a couple of States throughout the year. In our Connecticut neighborhood the average house is currently about $900k. I know at least 5 of my neighbors had family money, or parents who helped them purchase the house. There is no way the legal secretary 3 houses away could possibly afford a house in this neighborhood on a typical salary for that job. We purchased 15 years ago for about half that amount.

In our Berkshire neighborhood, the houses are probably about $450K. We also purchased that for less than half of that amount about 8 years ago. We are the only people who have bought in that neighborhood in the past 15 years, so most of those people bought for far less than that, and several of the houses there were built on subdivided land from their parents, so there are many multi generation families in the neighborhood as well.

There is a lot of family money floating around, especially in New England.