Thanks. Yeah I figured this was a weird definition thing..

Zillow defines a starter home as one in the lowest third of home values in a given region.

To be sure, the typical starter home still costs far less than $1 million at just under $199,000, Zillow noted. Overall, the median home costs nearly $418,000, according to the National Association of Realtors. 

Again I am not doubting the point, but my personal definition of starter home would be basically "the cheapest livable home with minimal standards applied". Given that I live in a metro area but have seen homes for $450-500K which are decent, reading $800K was a starter was surprising to me.