Real estate

File photo of a home in Hillsborough, Somerset County. (Ed Murray | The Star-Ledger)

TRENTON -- Property tax burdens in New Jersey run the gamut, averaging more than $11,000 in some counties in northern New Jersey to just below $4,000 in counties down south.

No tax bill, measured as a countywide average, topped $11,000 in 2014. But two of the 21 counties, Bergen and Essex, crossed that threshold last year. Four others, including Union, Morris, Passaic and Somerset counties, also exceed $9,000, according to new statewide data.

Statewide, the average property tax bill rose 2.4 percent, or $191, from $8,161 in 2014 to $8,353 in 2015.

The state installed a 2 percent cap on property taxes five years ago that the Christie administration emphasized Friday, and Gov. Chris Christie boasts often, is preventing the single-year, 7 percent tax increases of the past.

Annual tax increases since the cap was aggressively tightened from 4 percent to 2 percent through a law that also reduced the exceptions municipalities could claim "have consistently lagged neighboring state and regional averages," state officials said.

In 2015, nine counties, mostly along the shore or in the southern part of the state, rang up below $7,000 per home. Cumberland County, near Delaware, has the distinction of the lowest average tax bill in the state, at $3,921, according to data released Friday by the state Department of Community Affairs.

Expressed as dollars, Essex County residents are, on average, paying the most and had to cough up the most year over year from 2014 to 2015. Their bill climbed $351. Burlington County had the largest percent increase, which cost them $236, on average.

In all, homeowners in eight counties had to dig deeper into their pockets than the average taxpayer statewide, who had to pay another $191.

But Atlantic County, where taxes rose 7.4 percent from 2013 to 2014, had the only countywide reduction from 2014 to 2015 -- down 1.3 percent, or $82 back in their pockets. The average tax bill also rose in a hurry from 2013 to 2014 in Hudson County, 7.6 percent, but property owners there last year saw only a 1.9 percent increase.

The smallest year-to-year bumps, by percent change, were in Sussex, Passaic and Mercer counties, while average tax bills bumped up higher than 3 percent in Salem, Essex, Cumberland, Ocean, Gloucester and Burlington counties.

Here are the average 2014 and 2015 property tax bills for the Garden State's 21 counties:

Samantha Marcus may be reached at smarcus@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @samanthamarcus. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.