When an Ecuadorian businessman from Meriden came to New Haven for his first foray into buying a foreclosed property, he had no idea the house sat in the middle of a growing Ecuadorian community.
On Saturday morning, Saul Jarrin (pictured with the court-appointed attorney Lisa Duhl) pondered whether to bid on this sweet two-family, with what appeared to be a fresh coat of sunny yellow paint, on the corner of Blatchley and Pine.
The fact that 213 – 215 Pine St. was relatively new construction appealed to Jarrin. The price did not.
In the end, he decided not to bid. The plaintiff in the foreclosure action, Wells Fargo Bank, ended up taking the house back from its owner, Caesar Guttierez. The bank’s bid, which was the only bid offered, was $202,000.
Jarrin knows a thing or two about estimating value. He works as an inspector and appraiser of truck fleets for a Brookfield-based company. However, this was his first exploration in the business of buying properties and making them profitable.
Jarrin said that he and his wife had read the legal notice for the property, then had driven down to look at the house and neighborhood as well. Clues to the Ecuadorian presence in the area eluded him.
As to the property, Jarrin said that he and his wife had gone online to learn that Wells Fargo owns a lot of properties in town.
“Still, I think,” he said, after the sale was completed and the court’s attorney had driven off, “that the estimate is much too high.” He noted that an earlier market estimate, $240,000 in June 2008, had dropped down to $195,000 right before the morning’s sale. It was still too high, he thought, for the neighborhood.
“That would mean that if I had bid and won, coming in at over $200,000, makes me already $7,000 behind. Add to that $10,000 that you have to have in hand for the fees and back taxes, and I’m $17,000 behind before I begin.”
He concluded that for more than $200,000 he might get a property elsewhere that would have not two paying renters, but perhaps four.
Jarrin has a brother in Fair Haven. And he had heard that the Ecuadorian government assigned a counsel to New Haven. He did not know about the businesses, soccer leagues, and community organizations of Ecuadorian immigrants growing in Fair Haven. He was not aware of the nearby dual-language curriculum Christopher Columbus Family Academy or Saint Rose of Lima, both a few minutes walk away from the house on Blatchley.
“That’s all very good,” Jarrin said. After a moment of reflection, he added that he had moved to Connecticut after living for a good number of years in Westchester County, N.Y. “There, the Ecuadorians have doctors, lawyers, restaurants, businesses, a lot of things.”
“I think,” he said, “that level of being established in New Haven, for Ecuadorians, is still five or ten years away, but that’s OK. Personally, if I were to buy property here, I would be in it for the long haul too.”
He said his ambition would be not just to invest in a house, but in the community. “I have two little kids. I understand what this means.”
As to this particular house, Jarrin said Saturday morning’s foreclosure was part of his education in real estate. His gaze lingered on 213 – 215 Pine. “The house looks in good shape, but all you have to do, if you’re the owner, is to lose one tenant, and a month or two goes by without the rental revenue, and you’re in trouble.
“The margins are very slim. I think Wells Fargo has a lot of property here and if the deal goes through, they’ll put it on the market in two or three months. They’ll take a loss on it, probably. They’ll try to sell it for $140,000 or so, maybe less.”
Would he buy it at that price? Jarrin was noncommital, but he said that he and his wife, in researching the house, had already been in touch with Wells Fargo. He indicated he might be again.