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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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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Occasionally, I have clients ask me what they can and should do to improve their homes. I tell them it's the usual stuff, paint, landscape, keeping things in working order and updating where feasible.  In Foster City almost anything you do will require a permit from the City.  I can't begin to guess how many people out there haven't done that.  It's likely to be a large number because I'm going to list everything you must get a permit for below.  But before I do that, there at 8 things that also require an Architectural Review permit, as well!  And, if you live on the water, you might also need a Use Permit, as well.

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If you live in Hillsborough or Foster City you have disappeared!  You no longer exist.  At least as far as the United States Postal Service is concerned.  Yup.  You no longer exist.  Poof you're gone.  Last week the USPS consolidated zip codes and eliminated any and all cities or towns that share a zip code with a second city.  The "owner" of the zip, such as Burlingame in the case of Hillsborough, or San Mateo in the case of Foster City is now the name of your community. 

This has been going on for a while and you are aware of it if you live in one of these two cities.  You order something

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