and pressure them to do something else, you are headed for disaster:-(e.g.

Again a great group of like minded folks and no hard pressure sales pitch.  

Hard money loans make this very hard and put major pressure on you. 3.

This will put upward pressure on pricing.

The valley is filling up, very little buildable land left, there are mountains on both sides, relatively high birth rate, and lots of people moving here for the diverse economy and proximity to the outdoors, all mean upwards pressure on prices.

I assume that you pay for the $297 course only to be pressured into the $14k course. 

You're no longer just some random, faceless entity sending out junk mail, but can look like a real business and even personalize it and include information about yourself so they know they're dealing with a real person.A second benefit is that it's low-pressure.  

Also, can you pressure wash brick homes or is there some preferred method of cleaning the exterior?

A good way to gauge is to look at ads for rentals in these areas to see what the market rate is these days.

However, there are plenty of situations in Northern NJ where properties are intentionally listed under market value in order to get those multiple-bid situations over the asking price...in those situations, the true value of the home is likely somewhere in between the listed and sold price, and a good agent should be able to gauge the true value range.