City assessor database image
346 Norton St., one of Mandy Management’s latest acquisitions.
An affiliate of the local mega-landlord Mandy Management spent more than $1.1 million adding another 11 apartments to its local rental housing portfolio — and a Hill redeveloper pulled a 10-year, $22.5 million mortgage for a newly built and leased up apartment building on Lafayette Street.
According to the city land records database, the Mandy-affiliated holding company ABCD Investments DE LLC spent a total of $1,115,999 purchasing six different multifamily properties containing 11 apartments.
New Haven land records database
Recent property transactions.
Those new Mandy acquisitions include :
• The three-family house at 346 Norton St., which ABCD Investments bought for $425,000 from Marlon Jones Sr.
• The two-family house at 104 Lamberton St., which ABCD Investments bought for $185,999 from Male Pivit.
• The two-family house at 549 Valley St., which ABCD Investments bought for $160,000 from 549 Valley LLC.
• The two-family house at 834 Congress Ave., which ABCD Investments bought for $150,000 from Victor Reed.
• The single-family house at 29 Goodyear St., which ABCD Investments bought for $120,000 from Alma Butler.
• And the single-family house at 195 Starr St., which ABCD Investment bought for $75,000 from Earline Howard.
In other recent local property transactions, on Aug. 22, YBS Whalley LLC — a holding company controlled by Jack Yeung — purchased the four-unit commercial strip mall at 1351 Whalley Ave. from 1351 Whalley Ave LLC — a holding company controlled by Thomas Kelleher and Edward Kelleher — for $2,250,000. The property last sold for $600,000 in 1998, and the city last appraised it as worth $1,621,000.
And click here for a story on the recent flip of a two-family house at 327 Newhall St.
RMS Pulls $22.5 “Permanent” Loan For Lafayette Apt. Building
Thomas Breen file photo
The Aura (left) on Lafayette Street in the Hill.
New Haven land records database
Recent mortgages pulled by LLCs.
The city land records database also shows that, on Aug. 16, RMS Lafayette Street LLC — a holding company controlled by Stamford-based developer Randy Salvatore — pulled a $22.5 million mortgage from Liberty Bank for 222, 234, and 246 Lafayette St..
Those are the addresses that house the newly built 104-unit “Aura” apartment building — which is just one of five new apartment buildings (four of which are now complete and open for rent) that Salvatore’s company has built in the Hill over the past few years as part of the city’s three-phase Hill to Downtown redevelopment plan.
Salvatore said that this newly secured loan represents project’s transition from “construction financing” to longer-term “permanent financing.”
Construction loans typically last two to three years, he said. They cover the cost of building a new development. “Once the construction is done, and once [the building’s] leased up, we get permanent financing. The permanent financing is 10 years … If I’m going to hold [the building] for a long period, I need some time on the loan.”
This is the “normal process of going from construction to permanent” financing, he said.
In other recent mortgages pulled by local LLCs:
• On Aug. 18, the holding company Crown Court Property Owner LLC pulled a $57.5 million mortgage from Fidelity and Guaranty Life Insurance Company for 18 High St. / 129 York St. — the downtown corner lot that is now home to a newly built six-story, 132-unit market-rate apartment complex.
• On Aug. 23, two holding companies controlled by Ardelle Cowie pulled a combined total of $6.6 million in mortgages from Investors Bank for the 77-unit former housing co-op at 65 Dwight St. and the 33-unit apartment building at 179 Dwight St.
• Between Aug. 18 and Aug. 25, Sublime Ventures LLC — a holding company controlled by local landlords Abraham Meer and Avi Dagan — pulled seven different mortgages totaling more than $2.78 million from Silver Hill Funding LLC. Those mortgages were for rental properties located at 71 Blake St., 30 Henry St., 48 Henry St., 309 Norton St., 224 West Rock Ave., 254 Orchard St., and 171 Olive St.
• And on Aug. 20, Ocean 90 Delaware LLC — a holding company controlled by local mega-landlord Ocean Management—pulled a $1,464,000 mortgage from Corevest American Finance Lender LLC for nine local rental properties, including 115 Emerson St., 120 Blatchley Ave., 1241 State St., 150 Glen Haven Rd., 326 Rosewood Ave. # 14, 328 Rosewood Ave. # 15, 34 Melrose Dr., 501 Fountain St., 507 Russell St.
Welcome to New Haven. I rented the first floor apartment at 346 Norton Street for 17 years until it was literally sold out from under me in 2006 despite the then-landlord's promise that he would never do that without notice, as my mother was living with me and suffering from progressive dementia. I didn't even think about sticking around when the first question out of the mouth of the wheeler-dealer who bought it was whether I could qualify for Section 8! The handwriting (read: the kind of money he would be charging for these large apartments) was on the wall by that question.
That new owner's obvious attempts to quickly "flip" the house (the "For Sale" sign went up almost immediately, right next to the "For Rent" sign, on the front lawn) obviously failed. But now he's realized a profit by managing to sell it to one of the worst "management companies" around, one which is gobbling up what is left of New Haven that is not owned by Yale. At what point will city government intervene to stop these predatory buy-ups of all the available rental properties in this town, which make it unaffordable to live here (unless you're wealthy) if you don't qualify for a Section 8 voucher and unpleasant if you do? Is the answer "never?"