Sean Flinn

Katie and I have known that we wanted to buy a house together since long before we got married. Home ownership was, in fact, the inspiration for one of our first (and only) fights as a couple. I look back on that as simply being an outward manifestation of how passionate we both were about actually owning some property together.

Now, just shy of one year into our marriage (and 4 1/2 years into being a couple), we’re finally ready to take the plunge. About a year-and-a-half ago, some friends of our moved into a great new community in Tustin, built on the old (and now defunct) Tustin Marine Corp Air Station. We looked at the models and absolutely feel in love with the 3 bedroom / 2.5 bath plan. And hey! There’s that blimp hanger across the street — a registered place of “historical interest”!

But, after looking hard at the pricing, our budget and the loan options at the time, we decided it was just too much for us to take on. This was all pre-housing / credit crunch & economic crisis mind you. Heartbroken (and a little frazzled at how much it was going to cost us to become homeowners), we decided to forgo buying for a while and just take it easy. We have a good life as renters — tons of disposable income, a great condo in a great part of Costa Mesa, and next-to-none of the responsibility or overhead that comes with owning a piece of property.

And then the baby fever hit. Katie & I both really want to start a family at some point (not immediately — but at some point), but both feel equally strongly about not advancing to that phase of life until we actually have a house to call home. The longer we put off the one, the longer we’d have to put off the other. So, with biological clocks ticking, the economic meltdown having kicked home prices down a few pegs, interest rates at historic lows and the government (feds and state) both offering tax breaks to first-time buyers, we decided to revive our search.

As Katie blogged a while back, this did not start well. After a fruitless search in Aliso Viejo, we asked our real estate agent to find some laces in our price range in our (current) hometown of Costa Mesa. Again, kind of a bust. The big problem, we quickly realized, was that we kept comparing everything to the first place we’d seen in Tustin. People warned us this would happen. And so what? We’re a cliche.

So, about two weeks ago, we went back to Camden Place in Tustin, took one more look at the model, had the sales agent take us to the actual home site of the last place available for sale in the phase … and we decided to buy. This past Saturday, we handed over THE BIGGEST CHECK I HAVE EVER WRITTEN IN MY LIFE to the fine folks in the sales office and signed a stack of documents about as thick as a phone book. Loans are being applied for and finalized. A CPA is (or so I’m told) pouring over our financial records to tell us exactly how broke we’re going to be once we close escrow and get our keys. It’s all a bit crazy.

Anyhow, pictures! I’ll document the whole process here on the ol’ blog (maybe some other prospective buyers will get something out of it), warts and all. And since the place is still being built, I can post regular shots of it all coming together. Here’s a slide show of what I’ve taken so far, including pics of the fully furnished model. I’ll keep my Flickr Photostream updated week-to-week as I take new pics.

Oh … and after signing the papers and writing the check, we headed up to Memphis in “The Santorum” in Downtown Santa Ana for a celebratory brunch. Our waitress, apparently all jacked up on sugar (she took a bar bet and drank and entire jar of maraschino cherry juice) decided to pour us bottomless mimosas … in which we indulged mightily. Let me tell you: nothing dulls the ache of impending cash poverty like a good Sunday drunk.