Marina Lagoon

Just to the west of Foster City, Marina Lagoon is sort of cool upper middle class neighborhood that winds along Seal Sloth.

Homes here are a mix of Ranch and Eichler house, with wide streets and some back yards that look out onto the slough.
Right towards the middle of the Slough area north Highway 92 there are a lot of condos and apartments, as well. The median price for a dwelling in Marina Lagoon is around $500—but don’t let that seemingly low price tag throw you, about half the dwellings are condos and the like and on sale due to foreclosure. When you exclude these from the list, the median price on single family homes jumps to about $750K.

There are a lot of deals to be had on foreclosures here however, with many auctions starting in the $200 K range (though I doubt they end in that range after all is said and done). When you look at the median price for recently sold properties in the area, it looks like $475 K is what things are going for with the low being around $200K while the high 750K$.

So this is definitely a somewhat affordable area.

The nicest homes, imo, are those with backyards looking out onto Seal Sloth—those are the ones that are most reminiscent of Foster City.

One of the drawbacks of this area might be the schools, if Parkside Elementary and Bayside Stem Middle School are the schools here (which I am not at all sure if they are). Both these schools are ranked below average. I am not sure however that Parkside is the local elementary for the area (though it is the closest to here).

Also Bayside Stem is a magnet school, which usually means that it should be stronger than most schools, I thought. Also if you judge by how the parents talk about the school, it doesn’t seem like they feel their children are in a bad school. So I am not at all sure what to make of this.

Crime here is like in Foster City—there just doesn’t seem to be much.

But this area is not just about houses. There is also a fairly thriving commercial and entertainment area.

The highlight for me is the San Mateo Ice Center which hosts local hockey leagues and is just a great place to go for a second or third date so that you can get out and do something and not sit and talk, talk, talk. They also have weekday offers for people who want to take in a bit of skating during their lunch breaks.

The BridgePointe Mall (which the Ice Center is a part of) is a pretty good shopping center and has a few quality (though typical) chain restaurants: BJ’s Brew House and Red Robin.

It is also a bit of a hotel hub with both a Marriot and a Hilton here.

Companies that call this area home include Like.com (a price comparison website that I think was bought by Google) and
RightNow (which uses cloud based technologies to manage social media—what ever that means)—RightNow was bought by Oracle.

Most of the condos and apartments are right by this area. A 2-bedroom around here is pretty expensive—it will run you $3000/month. So it is probably a better place to buy than rent.

Overall a pretty active, dynamic neighborhood.

While situated along the San Francisco peninsula, Marina Lagoon is an rarely explored San Mateo community that has fallen into obscurity. It is a small, skinny neighborhood that follows the twisting tidal channels (called Seal Slough) that makeup most of the neighboring Foster City. The neighborhood is also mostly occupied by flat land area filled with open spaces. For the most part, the district’s commercial area is plotted to the northern reaches of Marina Lagoon, while its housing district is further south. It offers an older residential community with many homes dating back before World War II.

Marina Lagoon’s residential quarters are more middle-of-the-road than anything else. Homes are small and nothing to brag about. They’re typically plain-looking, one-story in size and plotted on small, squarish properties (most of which offer shallow front yards and skinny driveways). The neighborhood as a whole is also somewhat reclusive and rarely visited by the outside world. This is mostly due to the winding channels and US Route 101 that separates the area from most of the city.

Within the heart of the community, you’ll find newly built, mid-size commercial real-estate spread evenly throughout the area (Bridgepoint Parkway is the district’s main drive). They mostly consist of office buildings and nice looking business parks. The area does provide a couple chain restaurants peppered throughout the community to serve the local business clientele. For recreation, Lakeshore Park sits along South Norfolk Street and provides a couple outdoor basketball courts and a youth baseball field. Moreover, Mariner’s Point Golf Center, a shabby 9-hole golf course and driving range, edges the beautiful San Francisco bay and offers great bayside vistas.