Arthur Delot-Vilain photo
Local investor Roberts: Wanted to buy, but didn't have enough $ for auction deposit.
A Fair Haven foreclosure auction brought out no new bidders — leaving the property to fall into the hands of the federal government, and the current tenant bracing to find a new place to live.
That zero-participant auction took place at noon on Saturday on the sidewalk in front of the three-family house at 52 Perkins St.
The house had been owned since 1976 by Anthony and Josephine Grillo, both of whom are now deceased.
The only bid entered in the auction was the opening bid, of $327,000, by the Secretary of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The federal agency first filed a foreclosure lawsuit for this property in December 2023.
Several onlookers gathered on the snowy sidewalk on Saturday to learn how the foreclosure auction process worked. Only one person came with the intention of trying to buy the house: Fair Haven resident and Democratic Town Committee Ward 15 co-chair Robert Roberts.
Roberts wound up not entering any bids, however, because he had brought a check for $31,000 — several thousand dollars short of the $35,000 minimum deposit required to participate in the auction.
City land records show that the Grillos bought the house for $38,000 in 1976, about $210,000 in today’s money. In 2005, they took out a reverse mortgage for $382,500 with a company called Financial Freedom Senior Funding Corporation. That mortgage was taken over by HUD in 2009. As of October 2024, per the foreclosure lawsuit’s court records, the total remaining debt on that loan was $323,000.
52 Perkins, on the right.
Roberts, who lives a couple blocks away on Clinton Avenue, said he wanted to buy the property for the sake of the neighborhood. He said he was worried about “all these people from New York and out of state” buying up properties in New Haven, who, he said, neglect maintenance and “ruin the neighborhoods.” If he had won the auction, Roberts said, he would have rented it out to “good residents” for the area. This isn’t Roberts’s first rodeo — in 2020, he won a Fair Haven foreclosure auction with a similar goal in mind.
Roberts, who works in the Streets Division of the city’s Department of Public Works, learned about the foreclosure sale on his maintenance routes. He noted that even if he had been able to win the auction, $327,000 plus repairs would have been a tall task — he estimated the necessary repairs at $80,000. “400 [thousand] plus, that’s a big nut,” Roberts said.
Roberts’s no-buy is bad news for Scott, who lives at 52 Perkins and asked to be identified by his first name only. Scott, a lifelong New Haven resident, first moved into the house around 15 years ago with his girlfriend — the Grillos’ daughter. He and Roberts have known each other for over 30 years. “I was hoping Robbie bought it,” Scott said, “it would mean I could stay.”
Scott said he’d struggled with addiction in the past, and has been clean for 10 years. He’s currently unemployed. He said he’s on food stamps and struggles to find work, in part because his driver’s license was suspended for unpaid child support. “How do you expect me to pay you back without a license?” he wondered.
Scott told this reporter he will soon likely be homeless. For now, he’s reaching out to case managers and counselors from the city for help. “I’m going to have to keep my head on and stay positive, clean, and be smart,” Scott said, “because I’m going to be struggling for the next week or two” until he can get more assistance.
“I have no choice but to understand and respect” the upcoming legal process, Scott said, adding that he hopes to find a place to stay with neighbors for a little while. “If not, good God,” he said with a wry smile. “That would, how do you say, kinda sorta suck.”
