Sometimes there are no "cheaper homes".
My friend sold his dump three bedroom rambler on a postage stamp lot for $305k.
Unless I was swapping homes, I would be a fool to enter the real estate market at this time, with these prices.
Bunk.
You're not going to claim, are you, that $285k is the bottom of the market where they could have bought a home?
Some markets are high, others are not. There is no single real estate market.