From what I've seen, most NJ home prices have stagnated or gone down unless it's located next to convenient public transit to NYC. People are pricing in the severely underfunded NJ government, which owes billions of dollars, so more tax increases are inevitable with more cuts to services.

Many other metro areas and suburbs have seen much higher appreciation over the last decade, such as Seattle, Austin, Portland, Denver, Nashville, DC, SF, LA, SD etc. NJ doesn’t have a major city and it’s inconvenient to travel to NYC or Philly.

From a financial standpoint, I’d avoid NJ/CT/IL just due to their value having been maxed out in my opinion.