Is This True?

So I finally got around to reading Steve Blow's column in yesterday's Dallas Morning News (which I rarely do since it is typically just dribble), but he was on a topic that always has my interest: Who buys those multi-million dollar homes? Although he never answered the question that he asked, this excerpt got my attention:

At the moment, 38 homes in Dallas and the Park Cities are listed for sale at more than $5 million on Realtor.com.

(If we drop down to the shabby $2 million range, there are 1,793 such homes on the tax rolls and 213 for sale.)

So who buys these houses?

David [a relator] said it's hard to answer because wealth arrives in so many ways. One obvious candidate: anyone lucky enough to own oil and gas property.

"This has been a very good time in oil and gas," he said. "A lot of people are looking to trade up at this point."

A whole new influx of wealth has come from the nearby Barnett Shale natural gas discoveries. "There are a lot of people who weren't really well-off at all, but they happened to own 100 acres of the old family farm. Now, they are very well-off," David said.

Is that true? I know nothing about oil and gas, so someone answers me this. If I hold the mineral rights to a piece of property and a natural gas well hits, how much am I going to make under a standard contract?