Was your <$30K down a <20% down payment and are you paying PMI as a result? I totally understand that %20 down is a big pile of money to conjure up, but PMI wouldn't have been cheap for us had we been unable to conjure it.
Our cost to close was under $100k with a 20% down payment, but still substantial. And yes, we were first time homebuyers. Obviously we did not buy anything approaching 2M.
With closing costs of $10k-15k, 100k doesn't even break a half million at 20% down. That's (sadly) not even table stakes in e.g. most parts of Boston.