The Great Wait : Home Buyers With Pockets Full of Dough Get the Chance to Line Up, Move Up and Move In

Keep in mind that these are “up-rent products,” made for your “move-up market, maybe some empty-nesters.”

And they do include “major-league upgrades,” such as molded balustrades on the upstairs balcony, beveled glass mirrors in the bathrooms and four built-in ovens in the kitchen, two micro, two convection.

Well, yes, OK, that is in the top-of-the-line model--3,100 square feet priced for now at a grab-it-up $494,500, give or take a few thousand.

But, hey, with houses--er, “products”--promising their owners “a very special and exclusive life style,” why not spend a couple of nights camped in your car waiting for the chance to plop down your money?

At least, at Huntington Beach’s Sea Cliff on the Greens gated community, you would have been in good company. Outdoor toilets were also provided, and on Saturday, coffee and Danish.

And if you didn’t like the idea of sleeping in the car yourself, you could have paid a college student $100 a night to do it. That was also done. One prospective buyer even borrowed a camper--lots of fun.

$391,500 for 3-Bedroom House

“We had a party last night, opened up the camper for everyone in line, provided they didn’t want our lot,” said Maria Ruhmel, a future Sea Cliff on the Greens resident, now of San Clemente.

Ruhmel and her husband, Dean, were buyers of No. 9 Saturday, delighted to be paying $391,500 for a three-bedroom, 2,400-square-foot attached house in the unfinished Master Series, the middle-priced development within the 120-acre project.

“We describe these as single-family attached homes,” said Dave Eadie, vice president of Cayman Development Co., as he led a visitor through the half-million-dollar model. “We try to make the attachment as minimal as possible. Once they’re inside, a lot of people don’t know that this is attached.”

Eadie pointed out the development’s “high-volume ceilings,” the “pickled oak cabinets” and the optional “wine rooms,” a small brick closet off the kitchen. Also not to be slighted, he stressed, were the wood floors, “upgraded” carpeting, Jenn-Aire cooktops and “fancy mantles” over the wood-burning fireplaces.

But all of that was simply old news to the anxious crowd waiting outside the model “cluster” of three attached homes. They really didn’t care anymore about strolling through model homes--they were ready to buy.

“This is the moment of truth, folks,” intoned sales manager John Fee as he faced the anxious crowd of about 25 home buyers at precisely 10 a.m. “It’s do or die.”

With that, conversation came to an abrupt halt. The three buyers first in line were told to come forward, checkbooks at the ready.

“I tell you, this is an entirely new experience for me,” said Dr. Y. S. Kim, a Portland, Ore., surgeon who has just accepted a job with a Fountain Valley health maintenance organization. “I don’t even go to restaurants where I have to stand in line, or to the movies.”

But after flying to Orange County on a moment’s notice, when he was told that the development’s model homes would be on display last Sunday, Kim has radically altered his habits. After spending two nights sleeping in line, the first in a Mercedes and the second in his daughter’s more comfortable station wagon, he and his wife, Shin, earned the No. 3 spot in line.

“It’s crazy,” Kim said, “but it’s the only game in town.”

Nonetheless, Kim’s children were appalled with their parents’ devil-may-care attitude, with their willingness to fork over hundreds of thousands of dollar for a house they have yet to see.

“Both my children are lawyers,” said Shin Kim, “and they told me that this was absolutely not the way to do things. But I said, ‘Look, we have made it this far without your help.’ ”

She said she wasn’t exactly sure how much they would be paying for their new digs, “$379,500, $399,000, it doesn’t matter.”

Sheri Beitner, a Huntington Beach real estate agent, was No. 12 in line after queuing up at 11 a.m. Friday. Her son pulled overnight duty. But for the big moment Saturday, even husband Marvin, a psychologist, was in tow.

“He wanted to play tennis instead,” Beitner said of her husband, “because he plays tennis every Saturday.” But words were exchanged, and Marvin relented.

“I would feel perfectly comfortable letting her pick it out,” he said. “I know that is the best way. I’m a psychologist.”

But Sheri Beitner was wise to that one. If anything goes wrong, it will be her fault. “That’s what I told him before we came over here,” she said.

She already had her dream lot picked out, No. 64, with the southwestern exposure, for $384,500.

“But she already wants to change the cabinets,” her husband added.

Inside the developer’s on-site office, salespeople were writing up contracts after calling out numbers like behind-the-counter deli men.

“No. 4? No. 4?” yelled out one salesman. But no one stepped forward. A saleswoman broke the news: No. 4, a doctor, had been called away for emergency surgery.

A collective gasp rose from those still waiting to sign their contracts. “Oh, my God!” said one woman.

The doctor, it was learned, had paid a college student $200 for two nights of in-line car sleep. All for naught.

George Sheatz of Seal Beach, buyer No. 6, could sympathize. He paid a student $100 for a night’s sleep, not to mention that Mexican food combo plate his wife brought down to ward off the chill.

“I’m a little too old to be sleeping in the car,” Sheatz said. “And when you spend this kind of money, instead of sleeping in the car, they should bring you in for cocktails.”

Sandy and Gary Dunn, going all the way with the half-million-dollar model, had the whole family sleeping in line to guarantee their No. 2 spot.

“My first reaction was, I wouldn’t stand in line for anybody,” Gary Dunn said.

But he came around when he and his wife fell in love with the plush 3,100-square-foot model. They already live within the same complex, in a townhouse they bought last year for $268,000. They say they hope to get about $330,000 for it now.

“Where else can you make this kind of money in a year?” Gary Dunn said of the red-hot Orange County real estate market.

“It’s bizarre to us too,” Sandy Dunn added. “It really is.”