New Haven Independent

So in principle DeStefanis, a mason from Pescara on the Adriatic Coast of Italy, has nothing against foreclosures. Nine people eventually lived in the quiet house on Davis Street in Westville that his father, also a mason, called the “barracks” because it was not made of real materials like stone, but merely wood.

The adjoining house, 30-32 Davis, was a grocery back then. Not an Italian grocery, just a general grocery, which sold everything. “And the best thing is that at that time the whole street was almost rural.”

That was in 1955. Yet the since-developed street running four blocks between Fountain and Whalley retained a sense of the pastoral as 30-32 Davis went on the block at a foreclosure sale Saturday. Court-apponted attorney Todd Sobieraj waited, it turned out in vain, for other bidders to show up.

The scene, across the street from Davis Street School, was perhaps too pastoral for DeStefanis. He pointed to the robust vegetation growing jack-in-the-beanstalk style between the two houses. One of his chief concerns about property abandonment: nature taking over.

“Look, they don’t cut anything, and I’m worried this winter it’ll bring down a wire,” DeStefanis said.

He is also concerned that the house, with only one of four units occupied, might have a fire and endanger his place.

At the end of the most catastrophic week in recent American financial history, the foreclosure of 30-32 Davis seemed, well, by comparison, almost benign. The house really wasn’t in bad shape, although its phony brick siding made mason DeStefanis a little ill.

In 2005, 30-32 Davis’ owner, Reynaldo Yapur of Port Chester, N.Y., took out a loan for $220,000 to support his purchase. After some obvious trouble in meeting payments, the note holder, one Residential Home Funding Corporation, moved to foreclose; that was in December 2007.

Appraised at that time for $326,000, and standing on a good street with solid neighbors such as Sergio DeStefanis, the house attracted the interest of some buyers. The court allowed Yapur to try to sell it through a commercial realtor. Two deals, one in May, and one in June, apparently fell through.

Attorney Sobieraj, who two years ago was the foreclosure clerk in New Haven’s State Superior courthouse (“It was not nearly so busy then”), would not speculate why those deals fell through. By August, the appraised value had dropped to $306,000. Although some ten callers were in touch with him, Sobieraj said, only the bank bid on Saturday morning. So down came the foreclosure sign, and another house went into the hands of a distant lender instead of a homeowner.

That lender is U.S. National Bank, of Irvine, California as trustee for Option One Mortgage Corporation as trustee for JP Morgan Mortgage Acquisition Corporation 2005 - OPT 2 Asset-Backed Pass-Through Certificates Series 2005-OPT 2. It assumed the mortgage from the original lender, Residential Home Funding.

That trail of repurchased bad debt — and a nationwide credit crisis’s toll on a city’s neighborhoods — connected the quiet proceedings on Davis Street to the bailout of AIG and other desperate measures the U.S. government is taking to bail out a broken Wall Street. That, and perhaps the anxiety evidenced in that no local people showed up to bid on a solid property on a solid block

Still DeStefanis maintained the long view. Yes, the neighborhood has changed. He and his wife had been mugged on Whalley; the assisting cops advised them “to stay on the other side of the avenue.” And, yes the kids across the street were not like his two daughters and a son when they were in school.

One daughter was even so troubled by the crime in the neighborhood — she too was mugged — that she returned to the ancient family manse in Pescara. Yet, all in all, it was clear DeStefanis still likes the street, and the neighbors, and wants things to stay that way.

As for the fate of 30-32 Davis? Attorney Sobieraj explained that between the Saturday’s auction and the court’s acceptance of the sale, Yapur could try to rescue the property again. But it was unlikely. “The banks appear to be collecting houses,” he said to DeStefanis, “a whole warehouse of them. It might be a good time to buy it from them.”

The retired mason wasn’t interested. This evening his one child who lives nearby, an electrician, was coming by for dinner. “We get along,” he said. “It’s a beautiful thing.”

In the meantime, however the house is disposed of, if there are problems with the house, DeStefanis said he had the number of City Hall’s Livable City Initiative.

Previous Independent coverage of New Haven’s foreclosure crisis:

• They Met On Foreclosure Way
• Little Garage Draws Big Bids
• A 2nd Chance on Lewis Street
• Foreclosure Attracts New Breed of “Specialist”
• In Foreclosures, Judge’s Hands Tied
• Home Saved From Foreclosure. Cycle, Too
• A House For Precious?
• Deutsche Bank Grabs Dixwell Condo
• Reluctant Bidder Snags F. Haven Bargain
• Well, There’s Always Powerball
• Neighbors Retrieve Home From Bank
• Somebody Has Plans For Bassett Street
• Foreclosed, the Khennavongs Leave the Santanas
• Foreclosure Steal May Be Too Good
• 2nd Foreclosure in 3 Months Dims Bright St.
• After Foreclosure, W’ville Owner Still Hopes To Sell
• He’s Not Buying, Yet
• Quiet Foreclosure on Porter Street
• 3 Minutes Too Late
• Historic Gambardella Property Foreclosed
•2 Homes Lost, 1 Gained
• “Everybody’s Got To Eat”
• More Foreclosures, More Signs
• Foreclosure Sale Benefits Archie Moore’s
• Rescue Squad Swings Into Action
• A Bidder Shows Up
• Bank Beats Tanya’s Bid
• Westville Auction Draws A Crowd
• DeStefano: Foreclosure Plan Ready
• Can They Help?
• “We Should Over-Regulate These Bastards”
• Rosa Hears of Rescues
• WPCA Grilled on Foreclosures
• WPCA’s Targets Struggle To Dig Out
• Sue The Subprimers?
• WPCA Hearing Delayed
• Megna’s “Blood Boils” at WPCA Tactics
• Goldfield Wants WPCA Answers
• 2 Days, 8 Foreclosure Suits
• WPCA Goes On Foreclosure Binge
• A Guru Weighs In
• WPCA Targets Church
• Subprime Mess Targeted
• Renters Caught In Foreclosure King’s Fall
• She’s One Of 1,150 In The Foreclosure Mill
• Foreclosures Threaten Perrotti’s Empire
•“I’m Not Going To Lay Down And Let Them Take My House”
• Struggling Couple Sues Over “Scam”

To learn about the ROOF Project, a community-wide effort to help New Haveners navigate the foreclosure crisis, click here.

The following links are to various materials and brochures designed to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.

How to prepare a complaint to the Department of Banking; Department of Banking Online Assistance Form; Connecticut Department of Banking, Avoiding Foreclosure; FDIC Consumer News; Statewide Legal Services of Connecticut, Inc; Connecticut Bar Association Lawyer Referral Service.

For lawyer referral services in New Haven, call 562-5750 or visit this website. For the Department of Social Services (DSS) Eviction Foreclosure Prevention Program (EFPP), call 211 to see which community-based organization in the state serves your town.

Click here for information on foreclosure prevention efforts from Empower New Haven.