They Took Their Brooklyn Budget to New Jersey for More Value. Which Home Would You Choose?

Three years ago, when Tom Chu and Janet Huang decided to move in together, only one of them had to move. Mr. Chu was living in Murray Hill with a roommate, while Ms. Huang was renting a one-bedroom in a new tower in Downtown Brooklyn.

“It was super-convenient,” Ms. Huang said of her place. “Everything I needed was there — all the stores, banks, doctors’ offices, coffee shops, Trader Joe’s.”

So Mr. Chu packed up and moved to Brooklyn — which was fine until the couple, now both 30 and engaged, found themselves working from home. Ms. Huang, a product manager for a media company, worked from the kitchen counter or the bed. “I was talking constantly,” she said. “We couldn’t have meetings at the same time.”

Mr. Chu, who works in finance, arranged his computer screens on a side table in the living room. And their energetic dog, Goose, begged to play fetch. “The three of us were stepping on each other’s toes, figuratively and literally,” Mr. Chu said.

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The couple craved an apartment with two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a kitchen both could occupy at the same time. They considered renting a two-bedroom in their building, but figured that the nearly $4,000 a month it would cost would be better spent on a mortgage.

Their one-bedroom was around 700 square feet. The available two-bedroom co-ops they saw in Brooklyn were around 900 square feet. “It didn’t seem worth going through the process of purchasing an apartment for 200 square feet extra,” Mr. Chu said.

And their $800,000 budget didn’t seem to be getting them very far. The listing for one Downtown Brooklyn two-bedroom, near their rental, mentioned “a good view of a grassy area,” Mr. Chu said. It turned out to be a spot where they walked Goose. “It was, like, a highlight of the apartment, so I had to kind of laugh at that,” he said.

Then Ms. Huang spotted a two-bedroom listing in Jersey City, N.J., where Mr. Chu had lived for a year after graduating from Rutgers University. It looked promising, but she was hesitant about leaving Brooklyn. “I don’t know how to drive and I don’t know anything besides taking the subway,” she said. “I did not enjoy my time at Syracuse because I felt I was stuck on campus.”

But after visiting Jersey City, she warmed to the area — and to the available condominiums there. “I didn’t want a cookie-cutter place,” she said. “Tom liked modern developments, but I find those to be kind of soul-sucking, kind of Pinterest-y. That wasn’t my vibe.”

Online, they found Joelle Chilazi, an agent at Compass. “I have a lot of clients who are looking in Brooklyn and Jersey City simultaneously,” she said. “Two out of three times, they choose Jersey City, because you get more for the money.”

Among their options:

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