North Jersey is just as expensive as out here when you factor in all the costs of living. The fact that they didnt come speaks more to their attachment to living there and the widespread availability of good high paying jobs with top corporations than it does to the cost of living here.IMHO
BTW, a good friend of mine living in North NJ that’s a C level exec with a small public company ($150M market cap) came out to visit me last summer with his family. He thought it was cheap out here.