The previous generation? My recollection is that our first mortgage 30+ years ago was around 6%, ARM. That is somewhat lower than it is now, but not lower than the last several years.
(I will add that we got some money from my mother-in-law to get up to a 10% down payment. Less than $10K, I think.)
We bought within a year of the market peak, and it was ten or more years before the prices returned to what they had been. At one point early in those years, my sister-in-law, in for a visit, remarked that a lot of the for-sale signs looked familiar from her previous visit. (Around a year.)
(I will add that we got some money from my mother-in-law to get up to a 10% down payment. Less than $10K, I think.)