Anthony Licciardello | August 16, 2026
Toms River, NJ
Four municipalities send their children to the same school district — the same three high schools, the same teachers, the same programs. Their general tax rates run from 1.681 to 3.170 per hundred dollars of assessed value. That is close to double, for an identical education, across towns that border one another. This is the guide to Toms River, Beachwood, Pine Beach and South Toms River: what they share, what they don't, and why the difference is the whole decision.
Three things. What they share: Toms River, Beachwood, Pine Beach and South Toms River are the four member towns of Toms River Regional Schools — roughly 14,654 students across 18 schools, three comprehensive high schools, and the largest district in New Jersey that is not an Abbott District. Each borough keeps its own elementary school, then students converge, with Route 37 serving as the historic dividing line for high school assignment. What they don't share: general tax rates running 1.681 in Toms River, 1.754 in Pine Beach, 2.741 in Beachwood and 3.170 in South Toms River — and a school levy increase that landed at 4.9% district-wide but 11.4% in South Toms River. The caveat that matters: general rates are struck against assessed value, not market value, so they are not directly comparable across towns whose assessment ratios differ. Treat the spread as directional and pull the actual bill on the actual parcel. But directionally, the message is unmistakable — buy the same education in a different town and the annual cost can change enormously.
Four towns, one district, four tax bills. This companion to our Toms River schools guide and township guide covers the three boroughs that rarely get written about. Rates, assessments, boundaries and enrollment change — verify current figures with each municipality and with the district before acting.
Toms River Regional Schools serves four municipalities: the township itself and the adjoining boroughs of Beachwood, Pine Beach and South Toms River. District records report 14,654 students as of 2023-24 across 18 schools, with roughly 1,078.7 full-time-equivalent faculty and a student-teacher ratio near 13.6:1. It is one of New Jersey's largest districts — reported in 2020-21 as the second-largest suburban district and sixth-largest overall, and more recently as seventh — and the largest New Jersey district that is not an Abbott District.
The structure keeps each borough close to home for the early years. Beachwood, Pine Beach and South Toms River each retain their own elementary school — Beachwood Elementary on Berkeley Avenue, Pine Beach Elementary on Pennsylvania Avenue, and South Toms River Elementary on Dover Road — before students join the shared intermediate and high schools. Route 37 is the historic dividing line for high school assignment: when High School North opened, it served students living north of that line, while those to the south attended Toms River High School South, including students from all three boroughs. Boundaries change; confirm the current assignment for any specific address with the district rather than assuming.
The four also share a funding problem, and they already tried to solve it together. Facing a $26.5 million budget gap for 2024-25, the district pursued regionalization with Seaside Heights, on the theory that a larger regional structure could unlock additional state aid under a 2023 law that had benefited the Freehold Regional High School District. In April 2024 the measure carried overwhelmingly inside the four member towns — roughly 85 to 90 percent in favor, about 2,364 to 427 — and was rejected by Seaside Heights voters. The merger did not proceed. The full funding chronology is in our schools guide.
A general tax rate is struck against assessed value, not market value. Two towns can show very different general rates while carrying similar real burdens, simply because one assesses closer to market than the other. New Jersey corrects for this with equalization ratios, and the ratios differ by municipality.
So treat the spread above as directional, not definitive. It tells you these four towns are not carrying the same burden. It does not tell you the precise multiple, and anyone who quotes you one without checking assessment ratios is guessing.
What settles it: the actual current tax bill on the actual parcel, from the tax record. That is the only number that pays. Toms River's own effective rate runs approximately 1.55% to 1.7%, close to its general rate, which is detailed in our property tax guide.
The school levy compounds it. As our schools guide documents, the 2026-27 regional levy rose 4.9% district-wide but 11.4% in South Toms River, which carried a deferred increase from the prior year — roughly $20.64 more per month on a home assessed at $171,200. Same district, same schools, and the year-over-year increase more than doubles depending on which of the four towns you live in.
For corridor context, the same rate table places nearby Island Heights at 2.070 and Ocean Gate at 3.019 — two more small boroughs along the Route 9 and river corridor covered in our corridor guide — against Berkeley at 2.320, Brick at 2.407 and Jackson at 2.471. Toms River Township sits at the low end of its entire neighborhood; three of its own school-district partners do not.
Here is where we have to be honest about what small municipalities do to data. These are boroughs of a few thousand people; some record a handful of sales in a month. Under the sample-sufficiency rule we apply across this cluster — under roughly ten sales, a median is an anecdote — two of the four below are signal rather than level. Beachwood and the township are the exceptions.
Median sale price for the three months ending May 2026, up 7.6%, at roughly $310 per square foot, averaging 29 days on market on 276 May sales. The only one of the four with a usable sample. Full adjudication in our forensic market report.
Median sale price reported for May 2026, down 1.8% year over year. A separate reading of single-story inventory showed a $377,000 listing median across three listings at 36 days, with two homes sold in the prior month. Directionally the most affordable of the four; the precise level is not establishable from these samples.
Listing median across seven recently sold homes at 39 days on market, with one home sold in the prior month. Directionally the strongest pricing of the three boroughs — consistent with its riverfront position and its notably lower general rate — but seven is not a market.
Median home price of $475,000 as of July 2026, with an average sale price of $480,207 and homes spending about 30 days on market, across 21 houses for sale ranging from $395,000 to $725,000. The median and average sitting within about $5,000 of each other is a good sign — it means no single outlier is distorting the figure. List-price medians run higher at roughly $499,888 to $524,000, which is the normal relationship. The largest of the three boroughs, and the only one with a coherent picture.
One aggregator publishes a Beachwood-area median of $411,750 alongside a claim that foreclosures account for 24.00% of properties in the ZIP code and pre-foreclosures a further 23.14%. Taken together that asserts roughly half of all residential property in Beachwood is in or near foreclosure — a figure so far outside reality that it fails on its face.
We exclude this source entirely, as we do across this cluster. We name it here for one reason: it ranks well enough that buyers researching Beachwood will encounter it, and an owner preparing to sell deserves to know that a distressed-market impression is circulating about their town without support. If a buyer raises it, the answer is the transactional data above.
What the gaps mean practically. Beachwood and the township have usable data. Pine Beach and South Toms River do not — and in markets that small, an automated valuation is averaging across a handful of transactions and will swing hard on a single unusual sale. If you are buying or selling in either of those two boroughs, the published number is close to useless and matched comparable sales are the only defensible basis — same street pattern, same water status, same vintage, same condition.
In a borough that records a handful of sales a month, an automated estimate is guessing — and it usually guesses low.
Get a valuation built on matched comparable sales in your own borough rather than a district blend or a county average — plus a marketing plan that states your carrying-cost advantage or your shared-district advantage, whichever one your address actually holds. Backed by the New York metro buyer pool we bring to every listing.
The framing that helps most: if the schools are identical across all four towns — and they are, past the elementary years — then the school quality argument that dominates most New Jersey town comparisons simply does not apply here. What's left is price, carrying cost, setting, and municipal services. That is a much simpler decision, and a much more numerical one.
Toms River Township offers the lowest general rate of the four, the widest housing menu — six submarkets from age-restricted communities to oceanfront Ortley Beach — county-seat services, and the deepest transaction data. Pine Beach is a small riverfront borough with the second-lowest rate and pricing that reads strongest among the three boroughs. Beachwood is the largest borough of the three, with a general rate well above the township's. South Toms River is the most affordable entry point of the four and carries the highest rate along with the steepest recent school levy increase — a combination that makes verifying the actual bill essential rather than optional there.
You hold the lower rates of the four, and almost no listing in this market says so. A buyer cross-shopping all four towns is comparing asking prices and has no idea the annual bill differs. Put the actual tax figure in the marketing — not a rate, the real number from the bill — and you have converted an invisible advantage into a stated one.
The shared district is your strongest asset and it is routinely left unsaid. Your buyer gets the same three high schools, the same teachers and the same programs as a Toms River address, generally at a lower entry price. That is a real argument, it is factual, and it reframes the comparison away from the rate and onto what the household actually receives.
This is the one that costs money. In towns recording a handful of sales a month, an automated valuation is averaging three to seven transactions and will swing hard on a single unusual one. Sellers in small boroughs are more often underpriced than overpriced, because one dated or distressed sale drags the model down and nobody corrects for it. Price from matched comparable sales — same street pattern, same water status, same vintage, same condition — not from a number a website generated.
Whichever way you lean, do the same two things. Pull the actual current tax bill on each specific parcel you're comparing — not an estimate, not a rate multiplied by a price. Then build both all-in monthly figures: principal and interest, real taxes, insurance quoted on that structure, and any association fee. Given a general-rate spread approaching double across towns that share a school district, that exercise doesn't refine the decision here — it frequently decides it. Township context is in our complete guide, and current inventory on our listings page.
Most New Jersey town comparisons are really school comparisons wearing a disguise — people say "better town" and mean "better district." Among these four, that variable is switched off. Same district, same three high schools, same teachers. So when a buyer tells me they're weighing Beachwood against Toms River, I skip the usual conversation entirely and go straight to two tax bills side by side. It is the rare case where the decision is almost purely arithmetic — and where the buyer who does the arithmetic has a genuine advantage over the one comparing curb appeal.
"These three boroughs are among the least-written-about places in Ocean County, and I think it's because they're small enough that the data barely exists — When I first drafted this I couldn't verify a clean Beachwood median at all — I found one since, at four seventy-five, and I'll take the correction. But the harder problem stands for the smaller two boroughs. When a town records four sales in a month, the automated estimate on your house is a guess dressed up as a number, and in my experience it guesses low far more often than high. So if you own in one of these boroughs, the worst thing you can do is accept the first figure a website hands you. Price it off real matched sales, and say out loud in the marketing what your address actually gives a buyer — the lower bill, or the same schools at a lower price. One of those two is always true here, and almost no listing says either."
— Anthony Licciardello, Broker, The Prodigy Team
Municipal budgets, tax rates, and what they mean for a household's monthly number are native ground for me: I'm Anthony Licciardello, Broker of The Prodigy Team — a former Director of Community Affairs in the Bloomberg Administration, now dual-licensed in New York and New Jersey and a leading broker for cross-border New York–New Jersey transactions, bringing the New York market to New Jersey sellers.
Our Above the Streets cinematic drone series covers these small boroughs the way nobody else does — with audience performance exceeding industry benchmarks for real estate media.
Anthony Licciardello · Broker, The Prodigy Team · 718-873-7345
We comp your borough against itself — never a district blend — and put your carrying-cost or shared-schools advantage in the marketing where buyers can see it.
Which towns are in the Toms River Regional School District?
Four municipalities: Toms River Township and the adjoining boroughs of Beachwood, Pine Beach and South Toms River. The district serves roughly 14,654 students across 18 schools with three comprehensive high schools. Each borough retains its own elementary school before students join the shared intermediate and high schools, with Route 37 the historic dividing line for high school assignment.
Why do the four towns have such different tax rates?
Because each is an independent municipality with its own budget, services, and rateable base, even though they share a school district. Published general rates per $100 of assessed value have run 1.681 in Toms River, 1.754 in Pine Beach, 2.741 in Beachwood and 3.170 in South Toms River. Important caveat: general rates are struck against assessed value rather than market value and are not directly comparable across towns with different equalization ratios — treat the spread as directional and verify the actual bill on the specific parcel.
What do homes cost in Beachwood, Pine Beach and South Toms River?
Beachwood has the best-supported figure of the three: a median home price of $475,000 as of July 2026 with an average sale price of $480,207 and about 30 days on market. South Toms River reported a median sale price near $422,247 for May 2026, with a separate single-story listing median of $377,000 across only three listings. Pine Beach showed a listing median near $555,000 across seven recently sold homes. Those last two rest on very small samples and should be treated as directional. Toms River Township runs roughly $505,000 on a usable sample.
How should I price a home in Beachwood, Pine Beach or South Toms River?
From matched comparable sales, not from an automated estimate. These boroughs record a handful of sales a month, so valuation models are averaging three to seven transactions and swing hard on a single unusual one — which more often leaves small-borough sellers underpriced than overpriced. Match on street pattern, water status, vintage and condition. And market the advantage your address actually holds: the lower carrying cost in Toms River and Pine Beach, or the shared school district in Beachwood and South Toms River, where buyers get the same three high schools generally at a lower entry price.
If the schools are the same, which town should I buy in?
Past the elementary years the schools are shared, so the usual school-quality argument does not apply among these four. What remains is price, carrying cost, setting and municipal services. Toms River offers the lowest general rate and the widest housing menu; Pine Beach a small riverfront borough with the second-lowest rate; Beachwood the largest borough with a rate well above the township's; South Toms River the most affordable entry point with the highest rate and steepest recent school levy increase. Pull the actual bills and build both monthlies before deciding.
Moving to Toms River — The Complete Township Guide
Toms River Schools — The Complete Guide for Buyers
Toms River Property Taxes — What You Actually Pay
Toms River Home Prices — The Forensic Market Report
The Route 9 Corridor — Five Boroughs, Six Cores
Toms River Homes for Sale — Browse Current Listings
Details as of publication, from the sources noted. District: Toms River Regional Schools described as serving Toms River Township and the adjoining boroughs of Beachwood, Pine Beach and South Toms River, with enrollment of 14,654 students as of 2023-24 across 18 schools, approximately 1,078.7 full-time-equivalent faculty and a student–teacher ratio near 13.6:1, reported in 2020-21 as the second-largest suburban district and sixth-largest district in New Jersey and in more recent coverage as seventh-largest, and identified as the largest New Jersey district that is not an Abbott District, per Wikipedia's district entry; borough elementary schools identified as Beachwood Elementary (901 Berkeley Avenue), Pine Beach Elementary (101 Pennsylvania Avenue) and South Toms River Elementary (419 Dover Road), per district and U.S. News school listings; the historic high school attendance division at Route 37, with students north of the line assigned to High School North and those south — including students from Beachwood, Pine Beach and South Toms River — assigned to High School South; and an April 2024 regionalization referendum with Seaside Heights approved by roughly 85 to 90 percent of voters across the district's four towns on a tally of approximately 2,364 in favor to 427 against but rejected by Seaside Heights voters, pursued amid a reported $26.5 million budget gap for 2024-25, per Patch reporting. Tax rates: general tax rates per $100 of assessed value reported as Toms River Township 1.681, Pine Beach Borough 1.754, Beachwood Borough 2.741, South Toms River Borough 3.170, with corridor and regional context of Island Heights Borough 2.070, Ocean Gate Borough 3.019, Berkeley Township 2.320, Brick Township 2.407 and Jackson Township 2.471, per a published New Jersey municipal rate table (Patch, 2024 reporting). General tax rates are struck against assessed value rather than market value and are not directly comparable across municipalities with differing equalization ratios; they are presented here as directional and should not be read as effective rates. Toms River's effective rate of approximately 1.55%–1.65% per a regional brokerage guide, and a 2026 municipal rate of 0.437 per $100 within a total bill of $9,561.73 on an average assessment of $450,600 per municipal budget reporting, are detailed in our property tax guide. A 2026-27 Toms River Regional tax levy increase of 4.9% overall and 11.4% in South Toms River, the latter including a deferred increase from 2025-26 and equating to approximately $20.64 per month on a home assessed at $171,200, per Patch reporting. Market figures: a Redfin Toms River Township median sale price of approximately $505,000 for the three months ending May 2026 (+7.6%) at approximately $310 per square foot with 29 average days on market on 276 May sales; a Redfin South Toms River median sale price of approximately $422,247 (−1.8%, May 2026) alongside a single-story listing median of $377,000 across three listings at 36 days with two homes sold in the prior month; and a Redfin Pine Beach listing median of approximately $555,000 across seven recently sold homes at 39 days with one home sold in the prior month. a Homes.com Beachwood median home price of $475,000 as of July 2026 with an average sale price of $480,207, approximately 30 days on market, and 21 houses for sale ranging from $395,000 to $725,000, alongside Beachwood list-price medians of approximately $499,888 (April 2026) and $524,000 with $314 per square foot and 28 median days on market (Movoto, July 2026). Pine Beach and South Toms River figures rest on samples of three to seven properties and are cautioned as directional signals rather than reliable medians. A market-data aggregator reporting a Beachwood-area median sales price of $411,750 alongside claims that foreclosures account for 24.00% and pre-foreclosures 23.14% of properties in the 08722 ZIP code — together implying roughly half of all residential property is in or near foreclosure — is excluded in full for internal-coherence failure, consistent with our standing exclusion of that source. Rates, assessments, equalization ratios, enrollment, attendance boundaries and market data change continuously; medians are not appraisals; and no value, price, tax amount, or outcome is promised. This is general information and market commentary, not legal, tax, or investment advice — verify all current figures and any specific property's assessment and tax bill with the respective municipalities, the district, and your own professionals before buying or selling.
Prodigy Real Estate is an innovative real estate company offering high-end video production, home valuation services, purchasing, and home sales. Serving New York and New Jersey.
