Thomas Breen photos
Four of Xu’s local rental properties: 113 Ivy St., 761 Winchester Ave., 126 Sheffield Ave., 50 Nash St.
Dr. Xu.
A prominent Bethany-based doctor has slowly rebuilt his poverty-landlord business four years after he dumped many of his rundown, code-defying local rental properties.
So far, he appears to be staying out of trouble this time with the city and his tenants.
According to the city land record database, the landlord, Jianchao Xu, a nephrologist who lives in Bethany and has been a vocal critic of forced organ harvesting in China, used three different holding companies to acquire at least 12 multi-family houses and apartment buildings across town between late 2015 and early 2020.
He spent over $1.3 million on those purchases, which landed him 28 different residential units in City Point, Dwight, Edgewood, the Hill, and Newhallville. Nine of those purchases were of foreclosed properties previously owned by national lenders like Deutsche Bank and U.S. Bank.
City land record database data
The last four-plus years of residential buys mark a steady return to the New Haven rental business for the well-documented slumlord, who has been affiliated with Yale and with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai.
Xu previously bailed on much of his local real estate holdings in 2015 and 2016 after city housing inspectors cracked down on persistent unsafe conditions at buildings he owned.
The doctor-landlord responded to the city’s code enforcement not by fixing up the buildings, but instead by selling at least 19 of his rental properties to various holding companies run by Ocean Management. Xu estimated at the time that 60 to 70 percent of his rentals were to low-income tenants receiving Section 8 federal housing subsidies.
Not only has Xu picked back up a slew of local residential real estate. He also has picked up millions of dollars to improve the properties — if he chooses to. They could use the work.
According to the city land record database, on July 2, one of his holding companies took out a $4 million, 10-year mortgage from CoreVest American Finance Lender LLC. That mortgage is based off of 11 of his local apartment buildings — including nine relatively recent purchases, and two buildings he’s owned for over a decade.
In recent visits to over half a dozen of Xu’s current apartment buildings and in interviews with five current tenants, the Independent found the buildings to be a bit worn down — with chipped paint, overgrown yards, the occasional wobbly front step — but free of overflowing trash cans, broken windows, loose electrical wires, and other health and building hazards found by the city at his other properties in 2015.
Every tenant interviewed said they have virtually zero contact with Xu. Instead, they direct any housing-related concerns, questions, or needs they have to Xu’s property manager, David Kone.
They universally praised Kone as quick to respond to concerns, and seemingly always on the phone and hustling from property to property. They also lauded him for working hard to rent Xu’s apartments to recently homeless people.
Some did persist in calling Xu a “slumlord,” and described a lack of proactive upkeep of the aging, and sometimes neglected, buildings.
Kone had little more to say to this reporter when briefly interviewed outside of a six-unit apartment building Xu owns at 50 Nash St.
“The business of the landlord’s is private business,” he said. “He’s a good person. He works very hard on behalf of his tenants.”
When asked about Xu’s history of running buildings with health and safety violations and his brisk departure from the local rental market after being caught, Kone replied, “Your paper has a history, too.”
Livable City Initiative (LCI) Deputy Director Rafael Ramos told the Independent that he hasn’t heard any complaints from Xu’s tenants recently. He said his last interaction with the landlord was when one of his buildings on Grand Avenue caught fire in December of last year, and the city and the landlord had to find emergency accommodations for eight tenants.
The most recent building code violation against one of Xu’s properties that this reporter could find on the city land records database dated back to October 2017. That’s when the city Building Department issued Xu a notice of violation and order to abate because of his illegal conversion of the six-unit apartment building at 38 Bishop St. into a rooming house.
“You Get What You Pay For”
56 Avon renter Eddie Chase.
At 56 Avon St., another six-unit East Rock apartment building owned by Xu, tenant Eddie Chase (pictured) described Kone in glowing terms.
“He’s wonderful,” he said about Xu’s property manager. “He does a lot of outreach with housing the homeless.”
Chase said the three tenants who rent the three other bedrooms in his four-room apartment are all formerly homeless individuals.
Chase said he and his three apartment-mates all have separate leases with the landlord, rent their own bedrooms, and share a common kitchen and bathroom. He said the rate of turnover in the building is quite high, and that his three years at 56 Avon St. is the longest tenure of any current resident.
The backyard of 56 Avon.
When asked about the living conditions of the building, Chase paused.
“It’s old,” he said. “But Dave is very responsive.”
He said that his room was quite dirty when he moved in. But he didn’t blame the landlord for that. He said that fault lies with the previous tenant.
He also noted that there was a separate shared common space on his floor when he moved in. Xu subsequently converted that into a fourth bedroom.
On the plus side, Chase said, the rent is relatively cheap for the area. And his rate hasn’t gone up in three years.
“You get what you pay for,” he said.
When asked what he would like to see Xu fix up about the building, if anything, Chase said, “The backyard is a bit overgrown.”
“A Great, Great, Great Guy”
The front steps of 50 Nash St.
A few blocks away, at another six-unit apartment building Xu owns at 50 Nash St., one resident stood on the front porch, leaning against the wooden railing and flipping through a newspaper.
He declined to share his name or be photographed for the article. He said he had been living in the building for only a few weeks.
“He’s been fair to me,” the man, who appeared to be in his late 20s, said about the landlord.
When asked about conditions at the apartment building, he shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t afford anything else,” he said. He paused, then followed up with, “I don’t blame him. I blame the bank.”
Another tenant, who gave his name as Jack, said he has a deal with the landlord whereby he rents a room at 50 Nash at a discounted rate and in turn does fix-up work at that property and other Xu-owned buildings.
“He’s a great, great, great guy,” Jack said. He said he’s lived in the building for around four years, and has lived in the East Rock/Goatville neighborhood since the 1970s.
He said 50 Nash is one of the last buildings on the block that haven’t been significantly remodeled in decades. “I like it,” he said. “It’s an interesting building.”
One of 50 Nash’s neighbors was less sanguine about how Xu’s property.
When asked if they knew the landlord, the neighbor replied, “You mean the slumlord?” They pointed to a wet spot on the side of the building, and said that that could be causing mold. And they said there is frequent drug dealing outside of the property.
At 761 Winchester Ave. in Newhallville, another one of Xu’s tenants sat outside on the front steps, smoking a cigarette and listening to a voicemail on her cellphone, which was turned to speaker mode.
“He’s an excellent landlord,” she said about Kone. She said she had never met Xu.
“There’s nothing bad about this place,” she continued. When asked about how she would like to see Xu spend the $4 million mortgage, which covered the Winchester Avenue three-family house she rented a room in, she replied, “I hope he spends a lot of that money here.”
“He’s A Slumlord”
Roughly a mile and a half south, at 595 Orchard St., first-floor tenant Ramona McDowell had a very different take on her landlord from the Winchester Avenue tenant.
“He’s a slumlord,” she said. “All he cares about is money.”
She said that she pays $57 a month and that her Section 8 subsidy covers the remaining roughly $1,200.
She said she lives in a one-bedroom apartment with her family The apartment has had a rodent problem and holes in the walls of the bathroom, she said. She said that the landlord hired someone to lay traps and patch up the holes, and that those two responses seem to have done the trick.
“I’m trying to get out of here,” she said about the Orchard Street building. She said she doesn’t feel safe in the area — and doesn’t like dealing with the landlord.
McDowell’s upstairs neighbor, Lauren Kyer, said she too has had a mice problem. “The floors are off level,” she added. “And the ceilings in the kitchen are not secure.”
She said the only one of those issues she has raised with the landlord is the mice problem. The landlord sent someone to put out traps, she reported, and that that has helped keep the rodents away.
Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Dr. Xu did not show up to a previously scheduled appointment with this reporter, and that he declined to comment. In a subsequent phone conversation, Xu explained that the Independent had not actually spoken with him when trying to set up an appointment, but rather with another member of his household who is not connected to his landlord business. Xu said he never got the message about this reporter wanting to meet up and talk for this story.
Has Mr. Xu registered as a licensed landord with LCI? Has he paid the licensing fee? When was the last time each of these properties was inspected BY LCI?
Dennis Serfilippi