Well, our current neighborhood, you really need to spend over 400k to get into a decent house, and that's probably not even with a garage if you don't wanna be on a main road. Taxes around here are commonly 10k-14k.
We were considering out rt 80 towards the Hackettstown area. Due to family here in Bergen county moving much further would take some discussion. (Elderly parents and such who don't drive on highways couldn't come visit.) It seems once you get west of Oakland, prices begin to drop off considerably. If we go any real distance south, we start getting near to Newark.
We always do have the option of getting a starter home right around here which is like a 1950s era, 2bdrm/1bath fixer-upper on a tiny property and just suck it up. But so far everything that is sub-400k gets snatched up as soon as it hits the market, gets torn down and a new house is built and goes on the market for 700k+. Even with our realtor being a family member, we can't find out about the cheaper houses soon enough.
This is what 380K gets you here, (taxes $8,685)...
http://www.njmls.com/listings/index....1602398&site=N