2026 Top Neighborhoods by Best Appreciation in Foster City, CA

Keywords: Waterside Boardwalk, Park Anchored, Quick Commute

Dolphin Bay is Foster City's answer to balance. Primarily single family homes, some still carrying their original 1970s bones, others taken down to the studs and rebuilt into something you would not guess from the street. Like most of the city, a good number of homes back directly onto the water wit ... See Full Page

Keywords: Sea Cloud Fields, Island Lanes, Park Density

Sea Colony is the biggest neighborhood in Foster City and the one most completely organized around the water. It occupies the southern end of the city, where the lagoon system and Belmont Slough meet, and the design pushes the water into almost every block. The homes lean toward the top of the mark ... See Full Page

Keywords: Duffy Boat Culture, Waterfront Density, Purely Residential

Street by street, Harbor Side puts more people on the water than almost any other neighborhood in Foster City. You will find a mix here: single family homes, townhouses, and condos, which is unusual for a neighborhood this waterfront-heavy and one reason it is a more attainable way into lagoon livin ... See Full Page

Keywords: Condo Living, New Elementary, Catamaran Park

The Islands is one of Foster City's smallest neighborhoods, just a handful of blocks tucked between Shell Boulevard and the water. There are single family waterfront homes on the western side, but the bulk of the neighborhood is condos and townhomes, which makes it one of the more accessible ways to ... See Full Page

Keywords: Boat Dock Homes, Island Streets, Waterfront Premium

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 t ... See Full Page

Keywords: Civic Center, Central Lake, Live Work Shop

Treasure Isle sits at the dead center of Foster City and functions as its downtown, to the extent that a planned lagoon city has one. Residential, retail, and office all share the same boundary, and it is one of the very few neighborhoods here where living, working, and shopping within walking dista ... See Full Page

Keywords: Office Towers, Big Box Retail, No Single Family

Metro Center is Foster City's engine room, and it makes no attempt to be charming about it. This is where the office towers are, where the big-box shopping is, and where a large share of the city's daytime population actually shows up. Visa's campus dominates the skyline, two twelve-story towers on ... See Full Page

Keywords: Inland Living, Court Layout, Walkable Groceries

Marina Point is the Foster City neighborhood that is least about the water, which in this city is almost a personality. Aside from a couple of apartment complexes and a handful of homes, life here happens inland, and the neighborhood is better for it in ways people do not expect. The street layout ... See Full Page

Keywords: Cove Waterways, Private Docks, Sports Fields

Isle Cove is built around coves and waterways rather than a straight lagoon frontage, and the effect is that the whole neighborhood feels a little like its own island. Streets curl in on themselves, the water keeps reappearing where you did not expect it, and there is a real sense of being tucked in ... See Full Page

Keywords: Gilead Campus, Golf Center, Workplace District

You probably will not live in Vintage Park, but there is a decent chance you will work here, and a very good chance you will end up here anyway. This is Foster City's jobs district, sitting at the northwest corner of the city. Gilead Sciences dominates it. The company's worldwide corporate headquar ... See Full Page

Keywords: Eichler Architecture, Levee Trail, Lagoon Beach

Bay Vista is the part of Foster City that architecture people come looking for. Those flat-roofed houses are Eichlers, built between 1963 and 1968 when the town was brand new, and this is the largest tract of them in the city. They sit intermixed with other contemporary homes on the streets and cul- ... See Full Page