No area is insulated from deflation, NONE,

Universal healthcare would boost the economy. If companies that don’t want to be there could get out of the healthcare business? If entrepreneurs could go after their ideas without being chained to their corp jobs?

North Brunswick is not considered one of the nicer towns around there, but if you don’t have kids, maybe.

E. Brunswick is nicer, S. Brunswick, Plainsboro.

I wouldn’t count on a train station, but if it’s true that might be a boost, although Jersey Avenue is pretty close anyway, so who knows how much of a boost.

You may well be right as long as Universal Healtcare doesn’t remove other personal rights. My biggest concern is in the push to preventative WellCare, Big Pharma has come up with a lot of Voodoo Diseases and Treatments. I could very well see this Dysfunctional Government requiring Annual Physicals and Mandatory Voodoo Treatment, without regard to side effects.

Is anyone familiar with the Renaissance subdivision there…and what do you think of the town house / single family prices? There should be a train station coming in the next 3 years supposedly so how will that affect the property prices there?

Right now, a 2500 sq ft single family house (with barely a back yard), 4 br, built in early 2000, is around the 500 K range, which it was about 3 years ago as well.

What would be a realistic amount for this kind of property — given the supposed growth of the city?

“Would you recommend NJ to any (non-millionaire) friend of yours who doesn’t live here?”

That’s a hard one. Partly because my perspective is international. The UK is in many ways home, but has it’s own standard of living issues, and as you know, the housing bubble is even worse there. It is my retirement place though.
Israel is even worse than here for taxes, costs and has a low standard of living plus you can get blown up so there are plenty of negatives there too.

I’m more stressed here than in the UK, have a better standard of living than in Israel. Both other countries have universal health though and that is a big plus to me – it takes a load off you might say.

As for the US – I am a West Coast kind of personality BUT it is much further from family which is a negative. Plus California is completely f’d up. New England is appealing but the cold not so much. South is full of bible thumpers, couldn’t deal with that. Midwest…..no, just to squeaky for me. Texas, apart from Austin, not a chance in h*ll, same goes for Florida. The desert has some appeal, but has the same issue as the West Coast.

So…. its suffer the distance or put up with NJ, unless you can suggest someplace suitable – East Coast, not too cold, not too humid, reasonably cosmopolitan, within stiking distance of a Rabbi so my kids can get Bar Mitzvah’d. And with employment.

I’ve thought about moving, even with all of the headaches and transition, but am stumped about where to go frankly.

Being a small business owner, I’ve seen firsthand how traditional insurance costs just drain the life out of companies. It’s made me an advocate for universal healthcare. Yes, it would be expensive, but it would also free even more capital that is simply wasted right now on feeding the insurance beast. I’ve also come around to the idea that healthcare is not a privilege, but a human right.

That being said, any universal healthcare system that is implemented in the US needs to come with a heavy dose of prevention and personal responsibility. I think the idea of taxing people who can’t stop jamming crap in their pie holes is perfectly fine. Same goes for other forms of self-abuse that lead to ugly, protracted, expensive deaths.

However, we’re nowhere near that day, so until such time, all the cupcake rules and other nonsense just feel to me like little freedoms being washed down the drain.

Actually I did send Corzine a suggestion in July 2007 that he implement a FAT Tax at $10/lb for overweight Sheeple. I allowed an exclusion for those with a Medical problem causing it. Obesity is the new Sin Frontier. I thought it would compliment his Cigarette & Liquor Tax Initiatives. Maybe the Cup Cake Ban is the start. I also suggested this week he look at NY’s new Sin Tax on Marijuana, lest he fall behind the curve. Especially after today’s medical report that 1 joint is worse then 20 butts.

I like the people here. I just don’t like what happens to the ones who get elected to office.

Little by little, the gubmint steals a slice of freedom here, a choice there…all of it under the guise of “helping” us.

We the sheeple. Live and in color.

What’s irrational about anything I’ve stated in this thread?

I help people buy and sell RE every day all over Central NJ. I see the lis pendens, sheriff sale and tax lien postings every single day. I watch the young, the old and the in-between taxed further into oblivion every year.

When an average couple starts a family, the only way they can usually remain in NJ is to completely sacrifice their quality of life. The welfare state is bleeding us by a death of a thousand cuts. I never thought I’d agree with the Jersey Guys on 101.5, but I’ve really come to believe that Corzine et al really have the destruction of the middle class as their goal.