Foster City, California.
Typical home $1,845,821 (+2.1% in a year), asking rent $4,450 (+12.0%). San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$4,433 (+84%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $37,621 +2%
- $1,808,200$1,845,821 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $180,488 +11%
- $1,665,333$1,845,821 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Foster City$9,688
- California$3,997
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 34 years.
Typical home values in Foster City, CA rose 2.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Foster City, CA rose 12.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Foster City runs $8,153/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $9,009 in Jan 2025.
That is $12,603 a month against $4,450 rent: a $9,688 mortgage payment, plus $939 property tax and $1,976 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Foster City
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$12,603
- Renting$4,450
- Mortgage only$9,688
Property tax · $939/mo 0.61% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for San Mateo County, CA
Insurance & upkeep · $1,976/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Foster City, San Mateo County, California
Foster City is a city of 33,805 people in San Mateo County. Half its households earn more than $199,143 a year and half less, against $158,855 across San Mateo County; 4% of its people live below the poverty line. 51% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 49% are rented. Unemployment in Foster City was 4.1% in August 2026, and San Mateo County had 1.2% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in professional services, then schools and health care.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Foster City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula, home to a mid-sized community of residents. Households here earn more than across San Mateo County, and very few residents live below the poverty line. Homes cost a great deal to buy or rent, and the town has more renters than owners. Nearly everyone who is an adult holds a four-year degree or more, and winters are mild, with little or no snow and modest rainfall through the year.
Work. Residents work mainly in professional and business services, in schools, hospitals and social care, in manufacturing, and in media and telecoms. Among the largest workplaces in Foster City are Zoox, San Mateo-Foster City Schools and MidPen Housing. Many people work from home, and the typical commute is a fairly long one for those who travel to a job. Unemployment has eased slightly over the past year, though San Mateo County has seen a small dip in the number of jobs.
Things to do. For a day out, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco is one of the best known gardens in the region, a longer drive away. The Computer History Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art are both museums within a longer drive, and Levi's Stadium, a stadium, is also a longer drive from town.
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- 12,998households
- 74%of adults have a degree
- 4%below the poverty line
- 29 mintypical commute
- 34%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. San Mateo County had 411,346 jobs in 2025, 1.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 59° and lows near 40°; warmest in July, with highs near 81° and lows near 57°. About 19 inches of rain a year, and little or no snow.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Redwood City weather station, 6 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Foster City
- ZooxCab services2,476
- San Mateo-Foster City SchoolsSchool district1,014FTE
- ZooxCab services613
- MidPen HousingLessors of residential buildings and dwellings601
- Zoox Lincoln CentreCab services430
- Costco WholesaleWholesale grocer319
- Illumina-Foster CityBiotechnology research and development laboratories or services208
- ObayashiTunnel construction188
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 15 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 5,395 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Foster City’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on San Mateo County and the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA metro.
Foster City home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Foster City$1,845,821
- California$761,538
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Foster City listings, and the typical home goes pending in 26 days — the market is roughly in balance.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Foster City23.07%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Foster City46
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Foster City13
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Foster City address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Foster City — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.