City rankings

Most Expensive Cities in New Jersey

Short Hills ranks #1 in New Jersey for most expensive cities at $1,674,100.

This ranking orders all 50 qualifying New Jersey cities by median home value, computed from the named federal field or time-series described below. It is one of 9 transparent ranking lenses Areazine publishes for New Jersey, each answering one direct question from official data. Compare Short Hills's standing against every other New Jersey city ranked below.

Data updated 2026-08-21

50
Cities ranked
$1,674,100
#1 Short Hills
$544,100
Lowest, Englewood

What this New Jersey ranking shows

According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates, the CDC PLACES population-level health analysis, and the CMS Hospital Compare quality data, Areazine ranks U.S. cities across more than 19,000 incorporated places, census-designated places, and consolidated city-county governments. State-level city rankings combine these federal datasets to produce intra-state comparisons across demographics, economics, health outcomes, and hospital quality.

Short Hills leads 50 New Jersey cities at $1,674,100, while Englewood sits at the bottom with $544,100 - a total spread of $1,130,000 on median home value. The top 5 occupy 60% of that range, indicating a wide separation between leaders and the rest of the field.

The median New Jersey city in this list sits at $665,700, $1,008,400 behind Short Hills. See our methodology for ranking construction, data vintage, refresh cadence, and the federal upstream tables we join, and triangulate via the 8 other New Jersey rankings below, cities that lead on multiple lenses are the most robust signals.

Top 5 - Most Expensive Cities

Top 5 New Jersey cities ranked by median home value
Rank City median home value Population
#1 Short Hills $1,674,100 13K
#2 Franklin Lakes $1,264,000 11K
#3 Princeton $1,050,600 30K
#4 Tenafly $1,002,600 15K
#5 Summit $994,500 22K

Does median home value track with city size?

Most Expensive Cities vs. population, top 25 ranked cities

Source: U.S. Census Bureau (population), median home value per methodology 2×2 strategic matrix plotting 25 entities by Population (X) and median home value (Y), with a crosshair dividing the plot into four quadrants. Large & strongSmall & strongLarge & weakSmall & weak 010,00020,00030,00040,00050,00060,000 500,0001,000,0001,500,0002,000,000 Population median home value
Source: U.S. Census Bureau (population), median home value per methodology

Most Expensive Cities 50

1 Short Hills
$1,674,100
2 Franklin Lakes
$1,264,000
3 Princeton
$1,050,600
4 Tenafly
$1,002,600
5 Summit
$994,500
6 Upper Montclair
$989,000
7 Westfield
$953,400
8 Madison
$943,200
9 Hoboken
$895,100
10 Ridgewood
$891,200
11 Glen Rock
$856,900
12 Basking Ridge
$851,200
13 Ocean City
$840,500
14 Paramus
$813,900
15 Florham Park
$791,400
16 New Providence
$769,900
17 Haddonfield
$755,300
18 Martinsville
$720,400
19 Palisades Park
$719,600
20 Edgewater
$715,700
21 Lakewood
$715,500
22 Kinnelon
$706,400
23 Ramsey
$697,300
24 Robertsville
$685,100
25 Hillsdale
$677,500
26 Princeton Meadows
$665,700
27 River Edge
$660,300
28 Cranford
$646,500
29 Ridgefield
$646,200
30 Springfield
$607,900
31 Westwood
$606,400
32 Metuchen
$604,300
33 Rutherford
$603,600
34 Oakland
$591,300
35 Waldwick
$588,500
36 Cliffside Park
$588,200
37 Moorestown-Lenola
$581,700
38 Asbury Park
$581,100
39 New Milford
$580,400
40 Point Pleasant
$575,300
41 Long Branch
$574,000
42 Secaucus
$571,900
43 Morristown
$567,600
44 Jersey City
$566,900
45 Fair Lawn
$564,700
46 Totowa
$559,300
47 Parsippany
$555,400
48 Hasbrouck Heights
$552,900
49 Bradley Gardens
$546,300
50 Englewood
$544,100

More New Jersey Rankings 8

Wellbeing Cities in New Jersey Most Affordable Cities in New Jersey Highest Income Cities in New Jersey Largest Cities in New Jersey Fastest Growing Cities in New Jersey Most Educated Cities in New Jersey Lowest Unemployment in New Jersey Youngest Cities in New Jersey
All cities in New Jersey → Compare Short Hills vs Franklin Lakes → All comparisons →

Reading this New Jersey ranking responsibly

Single-metric rankings are useful precisely because they are honest about what they measure. A "highest income" ranking does not tell you that the top-ranked city is the best place to live in New Jersey; it tells you that, among cities of population ten thousand and above in New Jersey that have a published median household income field in the most recent American Community Survey five-year estimates, this city has the highest such value. That precise definition matters, because composite "best places" lists from real-estate marketing sites and lifestyle magazines often combine income with subjective weights on schools, walkability, and amenities, producing a score whose components are not disclosed and whose ordering is not reproducible. Areazine's editorial commitment is to keep the underlying field, source, and vintage visible so the reader can audit any rank in this list against the canonical federal record.

Cross-checking against other rankings is a useful sanity test. A city that appears in the top ten on three or more different rankings, for example, highest income, most educated, and lowest poverty, is showing a robust signal across multiple independent dimensions. A city that appears in the top ten on only one ranking and middling on the others is showing a narrower signal, often driven by a single statistical artifact (a small population pulling the per-capita measure, a recent acquisition spike inflating median home value, an outlier survey year). The other nine New Jersey rankings linked above provide that cross-check at zero extra effort.

Data Sources

Population and economic data from the Census Bureau American Community Survey (2024 5-year estimates). Health data from the CDC PLACES (2023). Ranking computations use U.S. Census Bureau reference geographies. Crime statistics, where referenced, originate from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting program (also accessible via the Crime Data Explorer).

Read our methodology - how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.