Finding a year round rental is EXTREMELY difficult so make sure you are looking. Both Asbury Park & Neptune have good & not great areas so do thorough research. There are lots of seasonal & vacations rentals that can get mixed in so make sure you are looking at annual rentals. I think your budget is so-able depending on how many bedrooms you need & if you have pets (harder with pets since it limits your options.

So we went from college in CT, to the Jersey Shore (real shore not the horrible MTV show), to NOVA then back to the shore. We lived in NOVA for 6 years. Traffic is terrible almost all the time. Used to take me 30-45 minutes to go 6 miles. There was a great diversity of food around DC which we really liked but that was the best part. I worked in government relations but it felt like everything was political. It gets old fast. We have been back in NJ 10 years & I don’t think we will leave again.