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As everyone said,YOUR best bet is to look at south Jersey,and if you need access to a big city you could try Burlington County,Nj which is right next to Philadelphia.
Mount Laurel,Moorestown,Cherry Hill,Sicklerville,even Philipsburg are all towns with cheap housing.
I also would like to add the western part of the state is cheaper than the eastern part.
I think that's a better comparison than the nnj/south nj comparison.
You can find a house in that price range in Woodbridge, which is not too far from Metuchen. However, it does not have that quaint feel as Metuchen does. But it is a very, very, very safe town to live in with reasonable property tax bills for New Jersey standards. Its school district, although nowhere near Metuchen's, it is a decent one if that's a concern. Noone talks anything either good or bad from Woodbridge, and that in a very strange way can be a good thing.
I just went to Woodbridge tonight to do some shopping. I know nothing about the town except it has my favorite supermarket, Wegman's. I joked with my wife that we should have moved to the town houses directly across from it since I love it so much. We spent like 2 hours looking at all the yummy food there. Woodbridge can't be that bad if it has Wegman's!!
When someone discovers this mystical land, which I am sure also boasts gold-crapping unicorns, money trees, teleportation to your place of business, pubs with free beer and burgers that make you lose weight, please inform me so we can put a downpayment on a home post-haste!
I grew up in Cinnaminson in south Jersey. You actually can get a decent home for 200k. It is a few miles from Philadelphia. Delran, Maple Shade, Pennsauken, Cherry Hill will have homes in your price range. All close to Philadelphia.
But I live in north New Jersey. Only thing you can get up here for 100k is a souped up Hummer and you can live in the back.
I just went to Woodbridge tonight to do some shopping. I know nothing about the town except it has my favorite supermarket, Wegman's. I joked with my wife that we should have moved to the town houses directly across from it since I love it so much. We spent like 2 hours looking at all the yummy food there. Woodbridge can't be that bad if it has Wegman's!!
In fact, is not bad at all! My wife and I rented a two bedroom apartment for twelve years near the Baron Center on Rahway Avenue. And the one criteria that we found overwhelmingly evident was safety. However when we decided to buy, we searched for houses in towns like Cranford, Metuchen, Westfield, and Clark. We took that approach based on the quality of their school districts and re-sale value (highly subjective). So at the end, we decided to buy in Woodbridge because of its convenience, safety, and affordability qualities. She works in mid-town Manhattan and I work in downtown Newark so a proximity to the train station was a must. After spending about a year and a half looking and going to open houses in the towns I mentioned before, we felt that these places were highly overrated and overly hyped. Sure! these towns are nice, with Metuchen being our favorite one, but we couldn't justify the asking price and conditions of the majority of these homes.
With that said, Woodbridge does have nice shops and restaurants. For example, you have J.J. Bitting on main street. Then, you have a couple of top notch Italian restaurants on Main Street and the mall among other things. As I mentioned before, the problem is that this town is not layed out like Metuchen. In other words, you don't have that nice downtown packed with fancy shops with a hip or quaint feel like Westfield or Metuchen. Needless to say, the school district is not performing at the level that many well do buyers would expect (also very subjective). My feel is that this is the primary reason why the town still is fairly affordable. Regardless, we bought a house on Green Street about a month ago and we are happy with the decision and the financial position we are at. Once our son is at the age of going to Middle school, then we'll decide whether to put him in a private school or not.
Last edited by Ed Guitar; 08-25-2012 at 06:11 PM..
Exactly. As A few have pointed out, you will have better luck in South Jersey. Since you mentioned Metuchen in your first post, it seemed as if you were looking at NNJ.
Exactly, my immediate family and I purchased a 30 year old 4 bedroom/3 bedroom one family home in Sicklerville, NJ (Gloucester township) for $215K. Also plenty of friendlier people on the whole as well.
In Northern or Central NJ this same home is about $600K plus.
What the OP is asking is tough, perfection with a small price tag = nope not in NJ.
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