LEWISTON — All six properties on the auction block Wednesday morning were good ones at one time, according to landlord Sean Watkins.

They were all his at one time, before financial troubles and a difficult real estate and rental market forced them into foreclosure or convinced him to walk away from them.

“When you have decades of decay, back from the time the mills closed to now, landlords can only put so much money into them so fast,” Watkins said.

Watkins was on hand Wednesday at the auction at the Ramada Inn, one of three people who were not working for Tranzon Auction Properties or the mortgage lenders. He didn’t plan to bid, he said. He just wanted to see what would happen.

In the end, the lenders were the sole bidder on the six downtown Lewiston tenements: 16 Prescott St.; 105-111, 122-126 and 202-204 Blake St.; and 94 and 102-104 Knox St.

LAB6 LLC, a group based in Overland Park, Kan., bid $600,000 for clear title and ownership of the properties.

The group’s representative, David S. Sherman Jr., of the Portland law firm Drummond Woodsum, said he expected the properties to be back on the market soon.

“They’ve completed the process, so we will get a deed to the properties and then they’ll likely list them with a local broker and try and sell them,” Sherman said.

Five of the six properties are occupied with rent-paying tenants. The sixth, 105 Blake St., no longer exists. It was gutted by a massive April 29 fire and torn down days later.

Jill Daviero, senior vice president at Tranzon Auction Properties, said Wednesday’s sale had been in the works for months. She’d hoped it would generate significant interest from buyers.

“We had one about six weeks ago,” Daviero said. “We sold six units, pretty much the same products in the same general vicinity and in the same shape.”

But that was before the fires.

“Not to mention that your neighboring city, in Auburn, has another 65 buildings that are vacant or condemned, as well,” she said. “So it’s very tough.”

The April 29 fire destroyed three buildings — the Blake Street building and tenements at 172 Bates St. and 82 Pine St.

A second fire swept through the area on May 3, burning buildings at 149 Bartlett St. and 110, 114 and 116 Pierce St.

A third fire on May 6 destroyed tenements at 114 and 118 Bartlett St. and damaged a building at 91 Horton St.

It has led the city to crack down on vacant buildings, sending crews out to board up windows and doors of abandoned tenements and haul away excess garbage in and around them. Mayor Robert Macdonald has promised new rules to crack down on dangerous buildings and problem tenants and landlords.

But for Watkins, the problem is purely economic. Too many landlords are like him, unable to generate enough revenue to pay the taxes, fees and heating bills associated with tenements and still do the repairs and maintenance necessary to keep them in tip-top shape.

“When you are talking about every building from that period of time needs new roofs, new siding, new gutters, new boilers, new plumbing, new electrical,” Watkins said. “You’re almost to the point of having a new building, except for the framing.”

Combined, the six properties were assessed as being worth $811,980 — $596,520 without the burned-out 105 Blake St. property. But the city is due $9,640 in back property taxes and $26,000 in outstanding water and sewer fees, according to Daviero’s information.

Watkins said the outstanding loans on the six properties amounted to about $1.3 million. Combined with the insurance settlement from the burned-out Blake Street building, Wednesday’s sale could put the building owners close to breaking even.

“Then, if they can sell the remaining units,” Watkins said, “someone might actually make a profit on this. Not me, but someone might.”

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