I was at a little gathering a couple of nights ago and there was a discussion about an increase in the level of crime in many of the Peninsula communities, (like all this theft of Tide detergent…what’s up with that?). Not too long after that I noticed an article in the Daily Journal about burglary in Foster City. Seems that Foster City had 4 separate break ins last Friday. 3 of the 4 took place at the Marina Point condos and the other was a house on Lurline. At the Lurline house alone the value of what was taken amounts to $100,000. Here’s a link to more details of this story on the SJ Merc’s website:

Thieves Steal $100,000 In Jewelry From Foster City Home

Well, it’s back to the drawing board for those hoping to add a 4th elementary school in Foster City…or in outlying San Mateo for that matter. Due to opposition, the idea of re-creating Charter Square for said school via a bond was dropped last Thursday by the school board. This has been a pretty wild and circular ride trying to find and agree on a suitable site for this school and who knows if it ever will happen? Here’s a couple of pretty informative links on this topic.

Elementary School Bond Put On Hold

and

What Will It Take To Build A New Elementary School?

Do you like Facebook? Does it drive you crazy? My wife Lesley hates it and won’t have anything to do with it…says what she really wants is “face time”. Not shallow relationships online. You’ve heard all that I’m sure. The thing is, no matter how you feel about FB it’s a significant force in our culture now and it certainly is a factor in our local economy. One thing I’m also certain that it’s doing…helping significantly to revive the local real estate market.

I noted, on Facebook actually, today that I’m busier right now than I’ve been in years and that I think the real estate market around here is hotter than I’ve seen it in the 22 years since I’ve been doing this. It’s absolutely insane right now…and I think alot of this energy is coming from Facebook’s IPO. everywhere I turn I hear people speculating about that…don’t you? Since the IPO I’ve seen SIGNIFICANTLY more buyers in the marketplace and multiple offers are the rule right now. Case in point. Today I presented an offer on a house at 919 Woodland in San Carlos. It’s a fixer upper 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath house that was listed for $699,000. My clients came in at $828,000 with a 30 day close and no contingencies of any kind. We weren’t even close. Turns out there were 28 offers! That’s crazier than 2004!

While were at it, I also presented an offer on a short sale at 702 Portwalk in Redwood Shores that was listed for $425,000. There were 11 offers on that place. On a short sale!!

How about in Foster City? Last fall I had a nice townhouse listed at 880 Carina in Isle Cove. It was on the market for 3 months and didn’t sell. All I heard was “The HOA’s are too high”, “There’s only a one car garage”, “The bathrooms aren’t remodeled”. We took it off for the holidays and relisted it again last Friday. Same place…even the same light staging! I had 200 people at the open house on Sunday. We got 6 offers tonight…5 of them went well over the asking price!

How do you explain this? Certainly, the inventory is ridiculously low on the whole Peninsula and certainly interest rates are low…but most of this activity began to really mushroom after Facebook announced it’s IPO. Seriously. It really seems to me that most of the folks out there who’ve been sitting on the fence just got off of it. 28 offers on a fixer in San Carlos? If you’ve been thinking of selling your home…now’s the time.

Seems like ages since this whole discussion about flood insurance and FEMA began, doesn’t it? Well it came to light last week that the City of San Mateo has largely completed it’s project of fixing the levees that separate that town from Foster City and they have appealed to FEMA to request that these communities be removed from their flood zone classification that could have triggered mandatory flood insurance. Of course, it’s not certain when FEMA will respond to that request, but it sure is a good sign that you won’t be required to buy that flood coverage as once was feared.

In the last few years it sure seems like I hear a fair amount of discussion about the geese around this community. I also hear incredibly passionate arguements from folks that don’t like the large goose population and plenty of opposing points of view by folks that love these birds and will seemingly defend them to the end. I get it, they’re really quite beautiful and remarkable. They also really leave a mess.  A friend of mine coached a youth football team that plays at Bowditch Middle School and told me how the kids and coaches would rountinely need to scrape the field of goose poop prior to playing or practicing. Understandable…it would sort of be a gross and particularly unsanitary situation to be playing on a field covered in poop…no matter what creature created it.

This topic sort of came to me when my friend Lydia told me how some folks in Redwood Shores are planning some sort of response to their own problem with these geese. They’re in effect creating a gameplan for limiting or discouraging geese from migrating into that area. Naturally, it would seem that if sucessful that would most likely bring more geese into Foster City. Who knows. Can we live with these geese? Can we live with more of them? Should there be plans here for limiting them as well?

As I’m sure a bunch of you are aware, the war for who wins the prize to develop the 15 acre site/Village Square went to the Foster City Community Partners group in sort of come from behind fashion. These folks were nice enough to show me their plans in advance and I have to say that they are really exciting and wonderful. They’re offering almost everything possible for folks 55 and over that includes an assisted living environment, condos and townhouses along with lots of retail. It’s a really bold and creative approach and after seeing it I really think the City made the right choice. It’s going to feel like a neighborhood all itself and there will be room for lanes to walk in as well as a large parklike central court with retail around it.

We’re in a 60 day period of business negotiations right now and the results of this will be presented to the City Council on January 3. There’s also a bunch of time before all this is final but the plans and a great deal of other information is available on the developers webpage by clicking this link:

http://www.urbancommunitypartners.com/experience/project/19-foster-city-request-for-proposal

As I’m sure alot of you have heard, there’s been a scam uncovered at several Lucky Food stores in Northern California in the last month or so and Foster City’s Lucky is included in the number of “unlucky” stores. Seems that someone has tampered with the credit and debit card readers in the self check out area and thereby gathered information necessary to withdraw money from the accounts of several people.  The theives had managed to place card skimmers in 23 stores and over 100 people, both customers and employees have fallen victim.

Several other Mid Peninsula Lucky stores were hit the same way. Here’s a link to the KCBS story about this event along with a complete list of affected stores.

Lucky Supermarket Chain Reveals Scope Of Card Reader Scam

Congratulations to Art Kiesel for being re-elected to the FC City Council and to Steve Okamoto and Herb Perez for their election victories last night as well. They ran well fought campaigns and deserve the win. Naturally, I was a little bummed that my cousin Jennifer didn’t win last night, but as active as she is in this community she’ll have plenty of years of service that are yet to come. Honestly, I’m REALLY proud of her campaign and the effort she put forth. She came pretty darn close…losing by 65 votes is certainly no disgrace.

Congrats once again to everybody involved on a well fought campaign. Here’s a link to the SJ Mecury-News article today on the totals:

http://www.mercurynews.com/san-mateo-county-times/ci_19293870

It’s almost here…election day! I just wanted to urge you all to get out and vote next Tuesday and while you’re at it vote for my fantastic cousin Jennifer Minkey-Selvitella for Foster City Council. She’s fabulous and will do a terrific job serving the citizens of Foster City.

Don’t forget…we need your support on Tuesday. Thanks!

As I’ve mentioned before, my wonderful cousin Jennifer is running for City Council in Foster City this year and she’s going to have a little meet the candidate coffee and cookie event tomorrow night at the clubhouse at Isle Cove. It’s going to be at 7:00PM…come on over and say hello and meet her. We would love to see you! Here’s a link to the location…it’s really easy to find:

http://g.co/maps/z8g4j

See you Wednesday night at 7:00!