Good luck finding a mortgage under $3.5k in my area unless you put 50% down.

Ignore the "mortgage or bust" people. I can't find a similarly sized house that, after mortgage, PMI, property tax, etc, is cheaper than my current apartment in a multifamily home. It's always at least $600/mo more, often more than $1k more. Maybe if you move to East Bumfukkit in South Jersey, but at that point you might as well move out of NJ entirely.