In 2024, Megalandlords Sold Big

Two of the city’s largest landlords unloaded a combined 188 New Haven apartment buildings containing 589 rental units for more than $78 million this year — as a wide array of different buyers, new homeowners and out-of-town investors alike, moved in to fill the void.

That trend was one of New Haven’s biggest under-the-radar housing stories of 2024. 

Amid the higher-profile ribbon cuttings and tenants union protests and new housing plans and LCI fines, this year in city real estate saw a steady trickle of sales by Ocean Management and Mandy Management — but mostly by Ocean. 

2024 marked a sea change for both of these megalandlord-property management-real estate investment outfits. Mandy remains expressly committed to staying, investing, and growing in New Haven. Ocean appears to be rushing out of town as quickly as possible, leaving new homebuyers to clean up the blight the megalandlord left behind. 

Both of these companies significantly grew their local real estate empires in New Haven in the wake of the Great Recession. Both stepped on the property-buying gas pedal during the Covid-19 pandemic. Both, at least this year, are now getting smaller. 

By the publication time of this article, Ocean affiliates sold 161 properties containing 492 apartments for nearly $64.9 million so far in 2024. That compares to only two rental properties containing six apartments for $600,000 that they’ve acquired during that time. 

Those Ocean sales numbers only include property transactions recorded on the city’s land records database. Missing from that count are a 17-unit apartment building in Cedar Hill that is currently in receivership, and a 40-unit apartment complex on Quinnipiac Avenue where the legal owner LLC has stayed the same, but the head of Ocean has stepped down as that company’s managing member. 

Mandy affiliates, meanwhile, have sold 27 rental properties containing 97 apartments for nearly $13.3 million so far this year. And they’ve bought three properties containing 32 apartments for $5.3 million.

To be clear, Mandy started the year and remains now a much much bigger local real estate company than Ocean. In September 2023, Mandy Management CEO Yudi Gurevitch told the Independent that his company owned around 4,000 apartments across roughly 800 buildings in New Haven, West Haven, East Haven, and Hamden. In March 2022, Ocean Management principal Shmuel Aizenberg told the Independent that his company owned around 1,400 apartments in the city. And that was before Ocean spent 2023 selling 65 New Haven rental properties containing 170 apartments for $26.6 million.

“As one of the largest landlords in New Haven, we’re deeply invested in New Haven and committed to its continued growth and success,” Mandy Management’s Yudi Gurevitch said in an email statement for this article. ​“As a real estate management and development company, our mission is to create value for the community while delivering returns for our shareholders.”

He noted that buying and selling properties sits at the core of their business. ​“Our activity fluctuates year to year, some years we focus more on acquisitions, while in others, we prioritize sales. Each year is different and we are always adapting to market conditions and strategic opportunities.”

Looking ahead to 2025, he concluded, ​“we’re preparing for an active year of buying and selling in New Haven. Our new real estate fund will strengthen our ability to invest in the city and we anticipate an uptick in activity next year. With this new fund, we’ll be able to identify and secure properties that we feel will fit our portfolio and align with our objectives.”

Ocean Management’s Shmuel Aizenberg, meanwhile, declined, through his company’s attorney, to comment for this story. 

Back in March 2022, he told the Independent that Ocean planned to sell off much of its portfolio in order to prioritize new residential developments. One of those developments, a 129-unit market-rate apartment complex in Westville at 500 Blake, appears to be slowly moving forward — though it’s years behind schedule. Others, at 1303 Chapel St. and 191 Foster St., appear to have stalled entirely.

All Over The Map

So. What exactly did Ocean and Mandy sell in 2024? Click on the map above for info on sales by Ocean (in orange) and Mandy (in blue) to date.

According to the Independent’s tally of city land records filings, the vast majority of Ocean’s property sales this year were of apartment buildings containing four or fewer apartments. 

Ocean affiliates sold 63 three-family houses, 51 two-family houses, 18 single-family houses, and eight four-family houses. Less than 20 of their sales involved buildings with more than five apartments apiece. Only three involved buildings with more than 10.

Geographically, Ocean’s property sales in 2024 were just as diverse. They included 29 sales in the Hill, 26 in Fair Haven, 25 in Newhallville, 14 in Dixwell, 11 in the Annex, 11 in West River, eight in Beaver Hills, and seven in Edgewood. 

Among Ocean’s 161 property sales so far this year, there were 151 different buyers — only 51 of which were LLCs. 

That means a vast majority of the housing that Ocean sold in 2024 — single-family and multi-family alike — were bought by individuals, from as nearby as New Haven, Bridgeport, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, and as far afield as Florida. 

Some of those buyers told the Independent they plan on moving into and living in these former Ocean homes. Some plan on renting them out. Some are professional real estate investors with other New Haven holdings. Some are on their way to becoming owner-occupant landlords.

They all have one thing in common, however: they are not all part of the same megalandlord. 

Ocean, effectively, is breaking itself up, and is being replaced by a host of smaller-scale residential property owners.

A random sampling of Ocean sales in 2024 includes:

• The single-family house at 34 Meldrose Dr., sold on Sept. 25 for $295,000 to Westley Santiago Leon and Maria Ernestina Garcia Minuche of East Haven. The property last sold for $125,299 in 2017, and the city last appraised it for tax purposes as worth $202,800.

• The two-family house at 17 Walnut St., sold on Oct. 15 for $270,000 to a holding company controlled by Yidah Blum of Monsey, N.Y. The property last sold for $155,000 in 2020, and the city last appraised it for tax purposes as worth $230,600.

• The three-family house at 126 Cedar Hill Ave., sold on June 12 for $360,000 to Aleksey Kolyushin of Milford. The property last sold for $169,090 in 2016, and the city last appraised it for tax purposes as worth $190,910.

• The three-family house at 142 Henry St., sold on Feb. 22 for $335,000 to Olga Torres Carpinteyro of New Haven. The property last sold for $40,001 in 2018, and the city most recently appraised it for tax purposes as worth $270,000.

• The four-family house at 164 Spring St., sold on Sept. 11 for $540,000 to a holding company controlled by David Dvash of Deerfield Beach, Florida and Ronen Dvash of Passaic, New Jersey. The property last sold for $112,500 in 2012, and the city last appraised it for tax purposes as worth $355,500.

And what about Mandy?

So far in 2024, Mandy affiliates have sold 10 three-family houses, six two-family houses, three four-family houses, and two single-family houses. Five of their sales involved properties with five or more residential units. Only one involved a property with more than 10.

Mandy’s 2024 property sales took place primarily in the Hill (six properties sold), Fair Haven (five), Newhallville (five), and Cedar Hill (four).

All 27 of Mandy’s sales this year were to different buyers, eight of which were LLCs.

A random sample of Mandy sales in 2024 includes:

• The single-family house at 16 Rock St., sold on Sept. 20 for $195,000 to Orville Ruiz of New Haven. The property last sold for $78,000 in 2021, and the city last appraised it for tax purposes as worth $154,300.

• The two-family house at 24 Daisy St., sold on May 14 for $320,000 to Danian Aljoe of the Bronx. The property last sold for $175,000 in 2022, and the city last appraised it for tax purposes as worth $246,300.

• The three-family house at 173 James St., sold on Oct. 18 for $410,000 to New Haven’s Jose Crespo-Maldonado, who is also the alder for Fair Haven’s Ward 16. The property last sold for $95,000 in 2013, and the city last appraised it for tax purposes as worth $273,100.

• The six-unit building at 53 Farren Ave., sold on Oct. 21 for $720,000 to a holding company controlled by Yehuda Kreditor of Woodbridge and Yaakov Jakubowicz of Brooklyn. The property last sold for $550,000 in 2022, and the city last appraised it for tax purposes as worth $441,400.

"If You Give Quality, You Get Quality"

After all that … who are some of these megalandlord successors?

One is Sarah Derbala.

Derbala is a native New Havener and a longtime renter in Fair Haven. She’s an employee at a local childcare support nonprofit, and a co-chair of the Ward 16 Democratic Ward Committee. 

Earlier this month, Derbala bought a two-family house on Victory Drive in West Hills from an Ocean Management affiliate. She plans on living on one floor of the building and renting out the other.

Derbala said she had no idea she was buying from Ocean Management. The seller’s name, after all, was Sahn Del LLC. 

She said the property had been ​“very neglected,” and suffered from ​“severe mold.” She wound up buying anyway because she was eager for the change — to own her first home, to become a landlord for the first time. 

She wound up buying the building on Dec. 10 for $290,000. The property last sold for $165,000 in 2019, and the city last appraised it for tax purposes as worth $174,400.

Now she’s working on fixing the place up, finding the right contractors to get the place in livable condition. That means everything from tree trimming to mold remediation. ​“It’s gonna take some time, and obviously some money,” she said. But, she’s up for it. She said she used to work for a property management company, and has a little bit of experience in the field.

“If you give quality, you get quality,” she reasoned.

Even though she didn’t love the house the first time she saw it, she said, she read the street name as a good omen: Victory Drive. ​“The name of the street is amazing. If there was any sign” that this might work, that was it. ​“I just knew that that was the house I was gonna get.”

Derbala said she’s committed to making the property worthy of the neighborhood, worthy of her home city.

Another New Haven renter-turned-Ocean successor: Jenifer Blemings.

Blemings, a New Haven Public Schools teacher, said she spent the past decade living in an apartment in a Hubinger Street home owned by a Rabbi Daniel Greer-controlled nonprofit. ​“They were very good to me,” she said about her now-former landlord. 

She got a call this year that the house was being sold; when she found out the price, she knew she wouldn’t be able to afford the rent under whoever bought the property. So she started looking for a house of her own.

She found one, at a single-family house at 559 Winthrop Ave., being sold by Ocean Management. She wound up buying the house on Nov. 14 for $243,000. The property last sold for $90,000 in 2016, and the city last appraised it for tax purposes as worth $164,700.

There is ​“a long list of things that are a result of a lack of preventative, routine maintenance,” she said about the single-family house she bought in November.

For one, the front and back doors are difficult to open and close ​“because they’re not hung right; they’re not level.”

While the building was empty of renters when she bought it, she said there was a tenant on the property this past summer. ​“My seller pushed back the closing date twice” as they worked to get the tenant to leave, Blemings said. She said she was committed to buying the house only if it wasn’t already occupied.

“This is probably not my forever house. This is my house until I retire” and move to be near her daughter, Blemings said. ​“While I’m here, I intend to take good care of it and put some work into it and increase the value.”

She said she’s already a met a number of her neighbors on the block while picking up trash. She likes them. ​“We do have a few absentee landlords” in the area too, she said. But so far, so good.

Other Ocean successors include Diolenny Perez and Adrian Garzon-Tello.

Perez told the Independent that the two-family home on Dixwell Avenue that she and Garzon-Tello now own had holes in the wall and a rickety toilet and a massive pile of trash in the backyard when they bought it from Ocean back in April.

“I bought that specific house because I saw potential,” said Perez, who is a registered nurse. It was the first house she’d ever rented out and the second one she’d ever bought, after her own home in Stratford.

“I had some savings, so I wanted to buy a house and rent it out – like an investment, in a way,” she said. The pair paid $285,000 for the house, which Ocean had previously bought in 2017 for $90,000. Perez said they ended up investing upwards of $70,000 more — so far — in order to clean and fix up the property.

One tenant was already living in the first-floor apartment, according to Perez.

“The toilet was moving around, so it was very unsafe for her to use her own toilet,” she said. ​“The faucet wasn’t working. It was hard for her to get hot water.” There were leaks to plug and holes in the wall to repair, Perez described. She said she removed a dirty second-floor carpet and replaced every non-working appliance. She got a dumpster for the heap of backyard trash, which included an old stove and a standard refrigerator left outside.

The tenant ​“told me that she felt insecure and afraid at nighttime, because she kept seeing people walking by the backyard constantly and breaking her car windows to steal stuff from her,” said Perez. So Perez installed a fence and eventually added a gate.

Perez knows what it’s like to not have a safe place to live. She remembers sleeping outside under a stairwell for a couple of weeks when she was eight years old, having just arrived in the Bronx from the Dominican Republic with her mother and siblings. ​“Little by little, we made it through,” she said.

She’s proud to now be able to own a second property. ​“It means a lot,” she said. ​“For me, besides the money that we get for the rent, my biggest priority is to make sure that the place they live is nice. I want them to be happy, to say ​‘This is my house, this is my safe space.’”

By now, the second apartment is also being rented. Perez is currently working on installing laundry machines in the basement and adding better lighting to the stairwell.

“In the future, I would like to fix the siding, ​‘cause it’s not good,” she said. She also wants to pave the driveway so that it doesn’t get muddy in the rain. ​“Everything’s expensive,” she said, ​“so I have to save in order to do that.”

OK, one more Ocean successor: Hakam Abdalla.

In January, Ocean sold the duplex at 13 Valley Pl. North in West Hills to Abdalla, a North Haven resident who owns a medical transport business.

Abdalla paid $280,000 for the house, which Ocean had originally purchased in 2015 for $67,000. It’s his only current rental property, although he previously owned a different rental house that he eventually sold.

He said he hasn’t made any repairs since purchasing the property. ​“I went there to ask them if you guys need anything to be done, if anything needs to be fixed. They said no, we are OK. That’s it,” he said about the property’s renters.

Both apartments are currently occupied, he said, but he has filed an eviction case against one tenant, claiming unpaid rent.

“To me, it’s better than putting the money in a bank,” he said about why he bought the Valley Place North property. ​“It’s been an investment.”

He said that the rental income from the property has primarily been used to help pay his mortgage, taxes, and other fees related to the house.

Laura Glesby contributed to this report.