Auction Keeps Owner In Neighborhood

Topeka Jemmott has looked up at the faded, overgrown, and seemingly abandoned single-family house at 537 Fountain St. just about every day over the past year during her morning walks around the neighborhood.

Now the Upper Westville resident will have a chance to bring that blighted property back to life, after she submitted the winning — and only non-bank — bid at the house’s foreclosure sale.

That was the outcome of the briefest of auctions midday Saturday outside of the foreclosed west-side home that sits on a residential stretch of Fountain Street between Colby Court and Lowin Avenue.

Jemmott, a Hill native and state developmental services staffer who currently lives just a block away on Benton Street, showed up early on Saturday with her mom Denise Hallums by her side. 

The two were expecting that Jemmott would have to compete with other prospective homebuyers and real estate investors interested in snapping up the single-family house in what Jemmott described as one of the city’s nicest neighborhoods.

But Jemmott wound up being the only one to show up, register with attorney and court-appointed ​“committee” David Rosenberg, and put in a bid — at just above the bank’s offer of $232,600 — to buy the padlocked and apparently vacant home on Saturday.

“I hope I can just keep this smile on my face,” Jemmott said with a mix of both nerves and excitement at having just bought the foreclosed property in her own neighborhood without first being able to tour the inside of the building to see exactly what condition it’s in. 

“We don’t know if there’s water in the basement,” she said, or if there’s anything else seriously wrong with the house she just bid on. 

Jemmott said she was heartened by the house’s windows, which looked intact and well sealed. ​“The windows look good,” she said. Her mom agreed. ​“This particular home, it’s gonna need work,” Hallums said. ​“It’s gonna need a lot of cleaning.” But, she added, she thinks it’s well worth it at the price Jemmott was able to buy it at. After all, Jemmott said, single-family houses in the neighborhood have been selling for well over $300,000 as of late.

What does she plan on doing with 537 Fountain St. once she officially takes ownership? Her neighbor Tony asked Jemmott that very question as he walked down the block to congratulate her on putting in the winning bid. 

“I don’t know if I’m gonna flip it or rent it out,” Jemmott said. 

Tony said that, no matter what Jemmott’s long-term plans are for the property, he hopes she cleans up the house’s overgrown backyard. After all, he said with a smile, his house looks out over that backyard, and for too long, this property has been an empty eyesore in an otherwise picturesque and serene part of town. 

“I just want it to look better for the neighborhood,” he said. ​“I’m glad she got it. It’s a great place to be.”

Jemmott told this reporter that this is the first foreclosed house she’s ever bought on her own. 

That doesn’t mean Saturday was her first time at a foreclosure sale, however. She and her now-ex-husband used to buy houses and either flip them or fix them up and rent them out. 

She said she decided to put in a bid on 537 Fountain St. and test out the real estate-investment waters on her own in large part because the house is just around block from where she lives, and she walks by it every morning.

As they chatted with Rosenberg in the minutes leading up to Saturday’s foreclosure sale at noon, Jemmott and Hallums wondered aloud why no other bidders had shown up thus far. After all, megalandlord investors like Mandy Management have been busy buying up properties left and right in the city, Jemmott noted. One could see plenty of Mandy signs outside of houses and apartment complexes on the stretch of Fountain Street leading up to the house up for sale on Saturday.

Rosenberg said that, in general, ​“big-time investors” want a healthy buffer between and the value of a property. In the case of 537 Fountain St., he said, that ​“buffer” might not have been big enough — leading some investors to conclude that perhaps it wasn’t worth buying the property given the amount it would cost to pay off the debts and fix it up.

Before the auction officially began and ended at noon, two other men walked up along the sidewalk to 537 Fountain St. — but neither wound up registering or putting in a bid. Both said they were just there to watch and see what happened.

“I drove by and I’ve seen it and I wanted to look more into it,” said Antonio S., who said he lives near the New Haven-Hamden border and works a handful of jobs, including as a photographer. 

How long has this been vacant for? Antonio asked Rosenberg.

“I don’t know,” Rosenberg said as he handed him an information sheet on the house. State court records show that a lender called Primelending, A Plainscapital Company first began the foreclosure proceedings against the previous owner back in 2016.

Rosenberg added, ​“I tell folks, ​‘What it looks like on the outside is a pretty good indication of what it’s like on the inside.” He said that the house has roughly $2,000 in water and sewer liens, but the ​“taxes are paid and current.”

At noon on the dot, Rosenberg checked his watch — and let Jemmott know that she was the one to have registered and the only one besides the foreclosing lender to have put in a bid for the house. That meant that she’d be able to close on her purchase of the property within the coming month.

“I feel great,” Jemmott said with relief and a hint of apprehension. Up next: Figuring out what exactly she wants to do with the house that is now almost hers.