San Mateo-Foster City Real Estate News

Get ready! Friday night should be clear and cool, as usual, perfect weather for the annual 4th of July fireworks. Foster City celebrates the 4th of July in Big Style.  Start your morning off with the annunal Lion's Club pancake breakfast, enter your kids in their own parade and plan on spending the day around Leo Ryan Park enjoying the holiday. Play games on the grassy meadow, picnic while listening to the musical entertainment that will take place during the afternoon and have a safe and sane 4th.  The Foster City Lion's Club will be selling food all day long.  It's a major fundraiser for them, so help them out and buy breakfast or lunch at the park. 

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Foster City, as a planned community, has single family homes, townhouses and Condos circling the city.  [There are loads of apartments, too, but we're only talking what's for sale here.] The single family home market is so different from the condo market it's like being in two different cities.  I'll talk first about single family homes, then the condos.  Last week we saw 34 homes for sale compared to today with 28.  The Median price was $1,166,000.  The Average price was $1,190,095.  If you could find it, the least expensive home was listed for $865,000. Today there's one for $868,000 - a steal for Foster City.  Prices have been trending up, but the price per square foot has moved down, along with the average days on the market.  Inventory was up last week, and my guess is that Altos Research's report for this week will show it down.  

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Since I like to write about happenings between Millbrae and San Carlos, summer means free concerts and each of our towns has some for you to pick from.  Make a picnic and grab your blankets to sit on and/or to possibly bundle up.  Bring the family and enjoy the music.  Free is good. When you're leaving the concert be sure to thank the local Park & Recreation people for providing the music.  Belmont kicks off the summer season tomorrow afternoon.

Belmont

Let's start with Belmont. Their concerts are always on Sunday afternoons from 1-4PM at Twin Pines Park on Cottage Lane. They begin in June and run through July.

June 15 - Stompy Jones - Jumpin' Jazz and Swing

June 22 - Refugees - Tom Petty tribute

June 29 - Tom Rigney and Flambeau - Cajun Fiddling

July 6  - McCarty and Company - Pure Country Western

July 13 - Groovy Judy - Flower Power Funk Rock

July 20 - Blue-Rock and Roll Rhythm and Blues

July 27 - D-5 - Rockin' the Par

San Mateo

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Last year, here, I wrote about the possibility of FEMA updating their flood maps for San Mateo and Foster City and including Foster City into a flood zone.  The maps came out last month and FEMA released preliminary drafts of revised Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRM) for the entire County of San Mateo. 

FEMA Has New Methodology

They have determined that a section of levee within the City of San Mateo does not meet FEMA's requirements for adequate flood protection.  Because of these changes in their methodology being used to generate flood plain data, the revised maps show all of Foster City to be in a Special Flood Hazard Zone, or Zone A.

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FOSTER CITY

Known as the City of Blue Lagoons, Foster City's lagoons were built to resolve an engineer problem when the city was first being developed.  Foster City is located on land originally known as Brewer's Island, which was originally marshland that had dried out after dikes and levees were constructed near the turn of the 19^th Century.  It was then a diary farm for several decades.

In 1958, developer T. Jack Foster purchased the land with the idea of creating a planned community, a popular idea at the time.  However, the silty clay mud sat at sea level.  The Army Corps of Engineers estimated it would take 45 million cubic yards of fill to raise the land to bring it up to eight to twelve feet needed to build on.  But a local engineering firm came up with a novel solution - raise the land four or five feet and create a central drainage basin to impound the water before it was pumped back into the bay. The concept worked and Foster City now has, as its centerpiece, a 218 acre lagoon that winds its way through the city.  The drainage basin still works perfectly even with severe storms battering the area some winters.

The city is home to about 30,000 residents.  This was the first planned community in the western United States.  There are single family houses, townhouses, condominiums, and apartments running in various areas of the city and many sit along side the water.

The city sits half way between San Francisco and San Jose making it a great place to live if one commutes.  The San Mateo Bridge is at the eastern part of the city and when the bridge first opened the 12-miles span was the longest bridge in the world. 

The schools belong to the San Mateo-Foster City Elementary District and the three elementary and one middle school test high.  There is no high school in the city so students have their choice of any of the San Mateo Union High School schools nearby.

There are parks everywhere and several with beaches allowing for water play.  Boating on the lagoons is only done with electric power, sail boats or paddle boats.  The Bay Trail wanders along the shoreline of the bay and is well used all year long.

Foster City is a great place for families with much to do outdoors.