As for cities in New Jersey, I’ve heard some cities are crime ridden, like Newark, and others are beautiful. I also agree with RainyDaySaver that the school district can make an area more appealing. Decisions, decisions!

-Thanks again for your comments!

Where I live, North Jersey, is a NYC suburb. It all depends on the city/town. Newark, considered a ‘blighted’ area, is two towns away from me. $150K gets you a 3-4 bedroom house in decent condition. $200K-$250K gets you a mansion — sometimes, literally. In our town, we were looking in the same $300K range, but everything at that price was a fixer-upper — and we didn’t want to put that much money into a house. Updating, yes. Gutting completely? No. We wound up with a nice-size house that we can grow into and not need to expand, that was in move-in condition, but it was at the top of our price range. In a town between ours and Newark, $300K gets you a very nice house, updated, good size. Property lots in this area tend to be 50×100, or about 5,000 square feet.

Here’s the difference between the towns: the school systems. Our town has the “best” schools of the three I just mentioned. Also, the highest property taxes (all taxes in Jersey are high in general, of course). So schools and property taxes are also things to take into consideration. Even if homebuyers don’t plan to have kids, the better the school system, the higher the property taxes tend to be in a particular town. Also, the average income in certain metro areas is lower, which translates to lower prices.