Carmel Village, Foster City, CA

Carmel Village is where Foster City goes a bit more upscale. It runs between the lagoon and the Bay, and your odds of ending up waterfront, or at least with a real view, are better here than in most of the city. Sailfish Isle and Dolphin Isle sit at the western edge and are the reason people know the neighborhood. Each is a single road lined strictly with waterfront homes, and nearly every one has a boat dock out back. These are not houses that trade often. When one comes up, the whole city notices. For everyone not on an isle, Marlin Park is within walking distance of anywhere in the neighborhood and does the heavy lifting: wide green space and a large beach right on the water. Shorebird Park and Werder Park fill in the smaller everyday needs. Carmel Village also happens to contain Bowditch Middle School on Tarpon Street, which is the only middle school in Foster City. That means the entire town's sixth through eighth graders converge here every morning, and if you live within a few blocks of Tarpon, you will build your morning around the 8am crush. Worth knowing that Foster City has no high school of its own, so from ninth grade on students head into San Mateo to San Mateo, Hillsdale, or Aragon depending on where they live. Carmel Village asks you to pay for the water and the location. Most people who buy in have already decided that is the point.