Peer Towns

Peer Towns is a TownScan convention, not an official New Jersey designation. It's how we choose which 6 to 8 towns to compare your town against throughout this report — places that are genuinely similar, not just any town in the state.

We select Peer Towns using a weighted comparison across four factors:

1. Effective Tax Rate similarity — how close the two towns' Effective Tax Rates are, the factor weighted most heavily.
2. Home value similarity — how close typical home values are between the two towns.
3. Distance — only towns in the same county, or an immediately adjacent county, are eligible at all.
4. Population similarity — how close the two towns are in size.

Every eligible town gets a score based on this blend, and the 6-8 closest matches become that town's Peer Towns. Effective Tax Rate carries the most weight because it's the number most directly relevant to what this report is helping you evaluate.