A buyer's lender calls three days into escrow. They have questions about a line on the property tax bill labeled "CFC Measure P," a note in the disclosures about differential settlement, and whether Foster City is currently in a FEMA flood zone. The list price held. The appraisal came in. The deal is not dying. It is being repriced.
That is the pattern in Foster City in 2026. Median price is not what surprises sellers here. The surprise is a small stack of local specifics that only surface once a buyer's team starts reading. Three of them show up in almost every transaction, and each one has a different answer than what a Peninsula seller might assume from experience in San Mateo or Burlingame.
The Measure P Line Item Buyers Will Ask About
Foster City voters approved Measure P in 2018 with nearly 81 percent support, authorizing the city to issue a $90 million general obligation bond to rebuild the levee. Roughly $85 million was issued on August 5, 2020, and the levy began appearing on Foster City property tax bills that fall. It will remain on those bills for 30 years.
For a seller preparing a listing, the practical numbers matter more than the vote total:
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Bond amount authorized | $90 million (approx. $85M issued Aug 2020) |
| Levy start | Fall 2020 property tax bills |
| Year-one rate | ~$36 per $100,000 of assessed value |
| Subsequent rate | ~$33 per $100,000, declining as assessed values rise |
| Duration | 30 years |
| Oversight | Independent citizens' oversight committee; funds restricted to levee work |
On a home assessed at $1.6 million, that is roughly $500 to $580 per year showing up in the property tax breakdown. Buyers relocating from Burlingame or San Mateo see a line item they do not have on their current bill and ask the listing agent to explain it. The correct answer is straightforward: Measure P is what kept the entire city out of a FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area, which would have carried an estimated $2,000 to $3,000 in annual flood insurance per property with a federally backed mortgage. It is a bond payment in exchange for the absence of a flood insurance requirement. Sellers who can explain that in one sentence keep the momentum. Sellers who cannot lose two days while the buyer's lender does the math themselves.
What Differential Settlement Actually Looks Like At Inspection
Foster City sits on reclaimed marshland engineered by T. Jack Foster's development team. The residential stock is remarkably uniform in age, with the majority of homes built between 1963 and 1980. That construction era matters twice: once for the fill soil under the slab, and again for the materials inside the walls.
Compacted Bay mud and imported fill continue to shift and settle over decades. Uniform settlement, where the whole foundation moves at the same rate, is generally cosmetic. Differential settlement, where one section drops faster than another, is the finding that changes an offer. Inspectors flag it through a consistent set of signals:
- Stair-step cracks in stucco or block at building corners
- Diagonal cracks running from window and door corners
- Floors that read out of level by more than an inch across 15 feet
- Interior doors that stick seasonally in the same jamb
- Gaps opening between baseboards and finished flooring
- Hairline cracks in slab-on-grade concrete allowing sub-slab moisture
Because the entire pre-1980 inventory falls inside the asbestos era, the same inspection will typically call out popcorn ceilings, vinyl-asbestos floor tiles, textured wall coatings, and pipe insulation as presumed asbestos-containing until testing proves otherwise. That is standard for a Foster City home of this vintage and not a defect finding, but a buyer's agent unfamiliar with the market will sometimes present it as one.
The pre-listing move that changes the negotiation is a sub-slab plumbing video. Cast iron drain lines from the 1960s and 70s degrade from the inside, and a camera inspection produces a document the buyer's plumber cannot easily re-price. Firms working the local market, including Bayside Builders Group and California Healthy Home Inspections, treat video of the drain lines and a structural assessment of the slab as the two items that most often surface late and reprice a deal. Getting them done before the listing hits the MLS moves the conversation from "what might be wrong" to "here is the report."
The FEMA Status: Resolved, But Technically Pending
The Foster City Levee Improvements Project reached final completion in February 2024. The scope was substantial: approximately 6.5 miles of flood protection, more than 22,000 feet of steel sheet pile, and over 4,000 feet of concrete floodwalls, designed by Schaaf & Wheeler Consulting Civil Engineers and built by Shimmick Construction. The as-built levee provides resilience against the 100-year flood hazard with three feet of sea level rise, and the project has been recognized by the American Society of Civil Engineers San Francisco Section, the American Public Works Association Silicon Valley chapter, Engineering News-Record, and three other industry bodies.
Here is the wrinkle that sellers need to understand before their first open house:
In February 2024, the City submitted a Letter of Map Revision (LOMR) request to FEMA based on the as-constructed levee system. Per the City's own project FAQ, the FEMA seclusion zone designation is described as "indefinite" while FEMA processes the LOMR.
Translated for a transaction: Foster City has done the work required to maintain FEMA accreditation and keep properties out of a mandatory flood insurance zone, and the city's official position is that the levee is complete and accredited. The federal map revision itself moves on FEMA's timeline, not the city's. When a buyer's lender pulls a flood determination, the answer they receive should not trigger mandatory flood insurance, but the buyer will still hear the word "levee" and ask questions.
The seller-side answer has three parts worth practicing: the levee is complete as of February 2024, it was engineered for sea level rise projections through the year 2100 per the city's Public Works description, and the Measure P assessment on the tax bill is the mechanism that paid for it. That reframes what looks like a risk disclosure into an infrastructure story with a paper trail from fostercity.org and fostercitylevee.org.
How The Three Quirks Interact With A Fast Market
None of this suggests Foster City is a difficult market. It is not. Per MLSListings data for June 2026, single-family homes carried a median sale price of $2,161,250, a median 14 days on market, a 103 percent sale-to-list ratio, and just 1.9 months of inventory. Condos and townhomes cleared at a median of $1,227,500 with 19 median days on market. Redfin's three-month window ending April 2026 put the median at $1.6 million with homes selling around three percent over list. Zillow's May 2026 average home value came in at $1,861,130, slightly down year over year, which is the direction MLSListings also shows for single-family homes. The sources disagree on the sign of the year-over-year change by a couple of percentage points, and that disagreement is itself the story: a stable, competitive market with buyers who will pay list or a little over, and who will not walk over a Measure P line item or a settlement note if the seller has already addressed it.
The three quirks matter because they are the levers a buyer's agent will use to ask for a credit after inspection, not the reasons a buyer will cancel. A prepared seller in Foster City wins the credit conversation with paper: a recent sub-slab video, a structural note on any settlement observations, and a one-paragraph explanation of Measure P and the levee LOMR. Without those, the buyer's team writes the narrative, and the price moves in only one direction.
A Short FAQ
Does the Measure P assessment transfer to the buyer at close? The Measure P bond is a levy on Foster City property tax bills for 30 years starting in fall 2020, tied to assessed value rather than the specific owner. It continues on the property after a sale. Buyers should expect to see it on their first supplemental tax bill.
Do Foster City homes require flood insurance in 2026? The city's completed levee restored FEMA accreditation, and the Letter of Map Revision submitted in February 2024 asked FEMA to formally return the flood hazard classification. Individual determinations run through the buyer's lender at the time of loan approval, and the answer can vary by parcel and lender. Confirm the flood determination in escrow rather than relying on a general statement.
Is differential settlement a deal killer in Foster City? Uniform settlement across a slab is common and generally cosmetic. Differential settlement, where one section moves more than another, is repairable and priced accordingly. The finding that most often reprices a deal is not the settlement itself but the absence of a recent structural assessment and sub-slab plumbing video the seller can hand to the buyer.
Selling in Foster City rewards preparation over positioning. If you are thinking about listing this year and want to walk the tax bill, the inspection prep, and the disclosure package before anything goes live, Chirko Group offers a no-surprises consultation built exactly for that conversation.
