Your attorney knows more about your finances than we do. Usually whether to surrender a home in chapter 7 depends on the worth of the house, your mortgage balance, how far you are behind in payments & also your state.

New Jersey has no homestead exemption though you can choose to use the federal exemptions - believe homestead $20,000+ federal.

Re buying a home after bankruptcy, you can buy anything you can afford. It would be very hard to get a loan right after bk but not impossible that someone will give you a loan - and certainly may depend on your down payment. And of course, you would have to expect that you would pay a very high interest rate & go through a finance co. You can rent but again you will need to find someone who will rent to you - might be hard but not necessarily impossible. You might discuss these concerns with your attorney.