After enlisting in the U.S. Navy at 19, Babatunde Ebunola landed a job right out of a Hollywood blockbuster: machinist’s mate nuclear, or “nuke,” making him responsible for the nuclear propulsions systems in submarines.
He spent long stretches working leagues under the sea. One six-month deployment coincided with the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, leaving him and his fellow submariners largely uninformed.
“We don’t take any messages,” said Mr. Ebunola, now 30.
[Did you recently buy a home? We want to hear from you. Email: thehunt@nytimes.com. Sign up here to have The Hunt delivered to your inbox every week.]
In 2023, after he’d returned to the surface and been stationed at a base outside Charleston, S.C., one message did catch his attention — on Hinge. It was from Karina Banaduc, an Army Reserve sergeant in town from nearby Myrtle Beach, S.C., for routine training.
“On my dating apps, I had set my radius to 100 miles, the widest that you can. But he did not,” Ms. Banaduc, 33, said. “The only reason we met was because I was in his radius.”
The pair had very different upbringings: Mr. Ebunola was raised outside Atlanta by Nigerian parents, while Ms. Banaduc was born in Romania and moved to the United States at 19. They also had contrasting views on pets: Ms. Banaduc had three dogs; Mr. Ebunola had allergies. Still, they hit it off immediately.
Soon they began to consider what a civilian life might look like. Mr. Ebunola retired from the military this year, while Ms. Banaduc opted to work remotely in the Army Reserve until her contract wound down.
“I could find work fairly easily,” Mr. Ebunola said. “But I wanted to be in a place where I actually wanted to live.”
In July, he started a job as a technician on the Champlain Hudson Power Express project, which will bring hydropower from Quebec to the New York metro area via a converter station in Astoria, Queens.
Finding a place that suited the couple’s lifestyle would be more difficult. They wanted at least three bedrooms — bonus if one were an in-law suite that could accommodate a home office for Ms. Banaduc and visits from her parents. Also on the list: a sizable backyard for the dogs, free parking, and a reasonable commute to Astoria for Mr. Ebunola. They had a firm budget of $700,000, with financing through a loan from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“I was worried because I did not know if it was possible,” Ms. Banaduc said. “On TikTok, I would see the people touring super small apartments in Manhattan, and I’d be like, yeah, there’s no way with three dogs.”
But online searches yielded some promising results. In April, the couple flew to New York for a weekend to pack in as many viewings as possible. “We started calling realtors, and honestly, a bunch of them kind of laughed in our face,” she said. “They’re like, ‘You can’t find anything with your budget.’”
One agent, Alexia Duquin of Batra Group Real Estate, was more optimistic. “You can find it, especially if you go into neighborhoods that aren’t so central,” Ms. Duquin told them.
So the couple zeroed in on the eastern stretches of Brooklyn and Queens.
Find out what happened next by answering these two questions:
0 Comments