Hillsborough, Burlingame Luxury Homes Real Estate

If you live in the 94404 zip code, FEMA may change your insurance coverage.  Why?  They are preparing new flood maps and because Foster City shares the zip code with a small part of San Mateo, Foster City residents may soon be required to carry flood insurance.  The shaded area on the current FEMA flood map shows the areas of San Mateo that are within the flood zone. Any new additions to the map will run south of highway 92 and both east and west of 101.

Heres the deal.  If you go and buy flood insurance now, before FEMA makes the designation, the insurance is relatively cheap.  A Preferred policy for a single family home in Foster City costs about $350 per year.  This is for $250,000 of coverage for your house and $100,000 for contents.  But only if you do it before FEMA pulls the trigger and prints the map.

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Yesterday I was asked when I was going to report on Foster City.  I’m pleased to give you a picture of what’s going on now.  There aren’t a lot of homes for sale in Foster City right now with only 16 single family homes are on the market this week.  Altos Research’s data was for last week, with 19 homes for sale.  Housing prices have jumped since January of 2008, and this is simple economics here with supply and demand.  Foster City really does sit in the middle of the Peninsula making it easy to commute north to the City, south to the Valley or into the east bay.  It was the first planned community in California.

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Could Belmont Have Hit Bottom and Now Be Rising?

Tuesday is our Broker Tour Day.  We get a list of all new listings available for us to see on Tuesday by late afternoon on Monday.  Belmont, generally one of the hidden gems in our Fantasy Island had 10 homes over $1 Million Dollars today. Belmont had a total of 14 new properties on tour.  Thats saying something.

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You know it's Spring when Art Festivals begin and this weekend Belmont kicks off the Art Festival Season in San Mateo County.  The Belmont Sidewalk Festival starts today and runs through Sunday at the Carlmont Village Shopping Center on the Alameda and Ralston. 

This is always a great way to spend a few hours during the weekend and it looks like the weather should hold up just fine, too.  It's always a free event and this festival features 25 professional arts working in all mediums.

The front page of the San Francisco Chronicle today features a story about the Hayward Fault. the earthquake fault expected to rumble next, and cause catastrophic damage to the Bay Area.  Foster City residents, take precautions to save your house before an earthquake because once it comes, it is too late.  Everyone knows about the San Andreas Fault.  It runs down most of California coming onto land in Daly City and exiting land in the Sea of Cortez in Baja, California.  The Hayward Fault runs parallel to the San Francisco Bay and sits under the hills where there are multiple schools, hospitals, houses, the University of California and Hayward State University.  It may be shorter, but it is now being considered much more dangerous to all of us living here.  The damage anticipated could be larger than Katrina.  They're talking economic loss of up to $165 Billion.

This is major and will impact the world. The San Francisco Bay Area is home to bio-tech, high tech, major corporations, universities and multiple other kinds of businesses.  What makes this so scary is that most of us do not have insurance for earthquakes.  It's just too

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