4 Quick Resales Net Flipper $364K

Real estate investor Shneor Edelkopf has kicked his rental-property-flipping business into high gear this summer — as his companies have bought and promptly sold four apartment buildings in five weeks, at a combined markup of $364,000.

Edelkopf’s companies’ flips are among the latest local property transactions recorded on the city’s online land records database. 

(See below for a full roundup of other recent sales, including state official/local landlord Alexandra Daum’s company’s recent sales of two Huntington Street three-family homes for $485,000 each, two and a half years after her company bought those same properties for $350,000 each.)

They represent the most recent examples of eagle-eyed investors finding a way to quickly cash in on the city’s hot housing market by buying rental properties at below-market prices in low-income residential neighborhoods — in this case, Newhallville, Fair Haven, and the Annex — and then reselling them within days or weeks at a steep profit to deeper-pocketed investors.

Edelkopf, whose companies are based out of Beaver Hills, isn’t new to flipping New Haven houses.

Nor is he the only real estate investor to have engaged in that practice over the past few years as city home prices have continued to go up and up over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

But, as evidenced by the last month and a half’s worth of property transactions, Edelkopf’s companies have emerged as among the most frequent flippers in town.

“I sell it to people from New York, they buy it, we make a profit, and we move forward,” Edelkopf told the Independent in a phone interview last year for a previous article about how one of his companies flipped a Newhall Street two-family house at a $55,000 markup.

In previous interviews, Edelkopf has said that he doesn’t just flip a property and then walk away. Rather, he stated, he sticks around to help manage the flipped property for the new owner, who he said pays to fix up the apartment building to improve living conditions for future renters.

“Basically what I offer is a package,” Edelkopf told this reporter in September 2021.​“I sell the property, but also I make sure the property” is taken care of for the person or company to whom he sells it. (Edelkopf did not respond to a request for comment by the publication time of this article.)

So. Which houses have Edelkopf’s companies flipped so far this summer?

• On June 24, EP Home Buyers LLC — a holding company controlled by Edelkopf and fellow local landlord Mendy Paris — bought the two-family house at 268 Exchange St. from the Estate of Bernard J. Somers, Jr. for $180,000.

In seeming defiance of linear temporality, EP Home Buyers LLC then sold that same property on June 21 — that is, three days before they bought it — to Av 1 LLC for $215,000, or at a $35,000 markup. (See side-by-side comparisons of the signature pages of those two deeds, showing EP Home Buyers acquiring the property on June 24, and selling it on June 21.)

The new owner is a holding company controlled by Cedarhurst, N.Y.-based investor Abraham Taichman, a regular buyer of Edelkopf-flipped properties.

The city most recently appraised 268 Exchange St. as worth $216,700.

On a recent visit to 268 Exchange, this reporter found a construction worker repainting and otherwise rehabbing the building’s first-floor apartment. The next-door neighbors reported that 268 Exchange is currently empty as a maintenance crew fixes it up. 

• On July 8, Pace Homebuyers LLC — a holding company controlled by New Rochelle, N.Y.-based investor Richard Pace III — bought the three-family house at 106 Bassett St. from Bassett Park LLC — a holding company controlled by Victoria Winningham of Darien — for $135,000.

Then, on July 7 — again, linear time be damned — Pace Homebuyers LLC sold that same Bassett Street property to Edelkopf’s company SZE Realty LLC for $200,000, or at a $65,000 markup.

On July 8, Edelkopf’s SZE Realty sold 106 Bassett St. yet again — this time to IGI Trading LLC for $255,000, or at a $55,000 markup from the price it had paid for that property the day before. The new owner is a holding company controlled by Brooklyn-based investors Yankov Wieder and Moshe Friedman.

The city most recently appraised 106 Bassett St. as worth $275,700.

Based on the plywood boards currently covering up 106 Bassett’s windows, that property — like the flipped Exchange Street multi-family house — appears to be empty.

• On July 11, Inner City Homebuyers LLC — a holding company controlled by Bradford Smith and Mike Altieri of Hamden — bought the four-family apartment building at 47 Hillside Ave. from PWD LLC — a holding company controlled by Bernadette Depino — for $355,000.

On July 22, Inner City Homebuyers LLC quit-claimed ownership of the Hillside Avenue property to Edelkopf’s S&Y Investments LLC for $1.

Then, on July 26, Edelkopf’s S&Y Investments company sold that same four-family property to 47 Hillside Ave LLC — a holding company controlled by Raphael Badouch, Arie Fertig, and Karmit Badouch of Lakewood, N.J. — for $575,000, or at a $220,000 markup.

The city most recently appraised 47 Hillside Ave. as worth $419,800.

• Finally, on July 25, Edelkopf’s company Y&S Investments LLC purchased the two-family house at 232 West Hazel St. from Anthony Morris for $206,000.

Three days later, on July 28, Edelkopf’s company flipped that same West Hazel Street property to 232 West Hazel St LLC — a holding company controlled by Raphael Badouch of Lakewood, N.J. — for $260,000, or at a $54,000 markup.

The city most recently appraised 232 West Hazel St. as worth $245,200.

In addition to the four most recently flipped properties described above, Edelkopf has also promptly bought and sold the following local apartment buildings so far this year in partnership with Paris through their company EP Home Buyers: 112 Poplar St. (bought on January 26, sold on January 27 at a $40,000 markup), 133 Poplar St. (bought on Feb. 8, sold on Feb. 23 at a $33,000 markup), 516 Dixwell Ave. (bought on March 2, sold on March 7 at a $40,000 markup), and 11 Winthrop Ave. (bought on May 3, sold on June 10 at a $48,000 markup).

Roundup: 93 Whitney Sells For $1.25M

In other notable recent local property transactions:

• On June 23, WFLP 93 Whitney LLC — a holding company controlled by John Williams of Guilford — bought the seven-unit mixed-use retail and apartment building at 93 Whitney Ave. for $1.25 million from 93 Whitney LLC, a holding company controlled by Michael Annatone of North Haven. The property last sold for $910,000 in 2005, and the city last appraised it as worth $1,226,700.

• On July 19, SA Financial LLC — a holding company controlled by Sachin Anand of Milford — bought the St. James Unified Free Will Baptist Church building at 79 Lawrence St. for $900,000. The city last appraised that church building as worth $1,126,900.

Former city building official-turned-private consultant Andy Rizzo, who’s working with the company that purchased the church building, said that the new owner’s plan is to convert the former property into apartments. ​“The plan is to maintain the main level, remove the roof, and add 2 stories to the first level,” he told the Independent by email. ​“Each level will then have 2 dwelling units, for a total of six. We will be submitting our plans to the City Plan Commission for their September meeting. Once all approvals have been obtained, construction will start soon after.”

St. James Unified Free Will Baptist Church isn’t the only East Rock former house of worship to be recently sold to a residential developer eyeing a church-to-apartments conversion. In May 2020, an affiliate of MOD Equities purchased the former Church of the Redeemer building at 575 Whitney Ave., and is in the process of converting that property into 24 new apartments. And in December 2021, an affiliate of the New York City-based developer Nitsan Ben-Horin bought the former Evangelical Covenant Church of New Haven building at 590 Orange St., and is in the process of converting that property into seven new apartments.

• On July 26, holding companies controlled by Danuta and Thomas Tamiolakis of Westport bought the three-family houses at 264 Huntington St. and 270 Huntington St. from a holding company controlled by state official/local landlord Alexandra Daum for $485,000 each, or a total of $970,000 across the two separate transactions. 

Daum’s company last bought each of those properties in 2020 for $350,000 each, or for a total of $700,000. The city last appraised 264 Huntington as worth $390,000 and 270 Huntington as worth $391,000.

Click here, here, and here for previous Independent articles about how Daum’s company sued two former tenants of 264 Huntington in small claims court to try to collect nearly $9,000 in back rent. The tenants said they fell behind as Daum’s company raised their rents during the pandemic. Daum said she increased their rents after rehabbing the apartments, and that she negotiated with the tenants to try to find a way for them to stay. Daum’s company ultimately dropped those lawsuits after the local immigrant rights organization Unidad Latina en Accion rallied to the tenants’ defenses.

• A holding company controlled by East Rock-based landlord Albert Annunziata spent a total of $2.875 million across two property transactions buying the 12-unit apartment building at 644 Orange St. and the nine-unit apartment building at 624 Orange St. from Joseph and Catherine Vegliante. The city last appraised those two properties as worth a combined total of $2,096,800.

• Affiliates of the local megalandlord Mandy Management spent another roughly $1 million buying five different residential properties containing 10 different apartments in Beaver Hills, Fair Haven, Cedar Hill, and Newhallville. Those properties include the three-family house at 217 Lombard St., the two-family house at 383 Newhall St., the two-family house at 398 Blatchley Ave., the two-family house at 32 Bright St., and the single-family house at 45 Rock St.

See below for a full roundup of recent local property transactions.