Call it the crying of lot 881. Yesterday afternoon, Lofts 881, a new condominium located in downtown Bridgeport, Conn., auctioned off 13 of 19 unsold apartments in the building, which has a total of 38 residential units. The hour-long auction, which is believed to be the first of its kind in the state, took place in a conference room in a Marriott Hotel in the town of Trumbull, amid candy bowls and a two-piece jazz band. The 60 people there bid on one- and two-bedroom units that range in size from 540 square feet to 1,452 square feet, with granite counters, bamboo floors and stainless-steel appliances. The red-brick five-story Lofts 881, which is named for its address on Lafayette Boulevard, features a 1,000-square-foot basement gym and a 2,000-square-foot roof deck in a building that formerly contained doctor’s offices. Winning bidders likely went home happy. Their bids, which were between $125,000 and $190,000, were up to 50 percent lower than what buyers paid for units in the building two years ago, when they first hit the market. [more]