Hackensack, N.J., could not have been farther off the radar screen when Bibi Masara and her two teenagers began looking to move from the Bronx. Ms. Masara, 41, who works for a venture capital firm in Midtown Manhattan, wanted a slower pace and initially considered Westchester County. But her research into home prices pointed her to New Jersey.

Last spring she closed on a three-bedroom, two-bath colonial near a nature preserve in the leafy Fairmount section of Hackensack. “For what I paid, $399,000, you couldn’t get a house in Westchester,” Ms. Masara said. Her new address is a mile from the shopping she prizes — the Whole Foods Market in Paramus. She and her daughters, who attend school in Manhattan, have a reasonable 15-mile, 45-minute bus ride to the Port Authority terminal.

What’s more, “there’s a sense of community here,” Ms. Masara said. “My neighbor next door takes in my recycling bins in the morning because she knows I’m a working girl with two kids. Everyone looks out for everyone. My older daughter even has been asked to babysit.”