[Paul Huryk]

There is always a balance between location, taxes, house price, and school system.

That said, my wife and I bought a house in Bridgewater as the combination of those 4 items was right on the money for us. We had looked at towns close by (like Montgomery) that have even better school systems, but the taxes, home price, and what you were getting amenity-wise (for the houses) was skewed in the wrong direction. We would have spent $5 a year more in taxes and $100k more to get the same house - not to mention another 15 minutes of commute for my wife.

This is what I would do if I were you:

1) look on the map and see what makes sense commuting wise and pick all the towns that are within that area

2) look up school systems and eliminate the towns that don't make the cut

3) look up the taxes and see how they compare - eliminate the towns with sky-high taxes

4) take that shortened list of towns and put your budget/requirements up against it and come up with a "real list". You don't wan to waste time and effort in your search that make no sense from the get-go.

This is the approach we took and luckily we found a close to ideal house that we picked up a for a really good price, but only needs cosmetic work like painting and landscaping to make our own.