Courtney and Sev smash The Block record with $1.27m profit and $1.87m total win
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Best friends Courtney and Sev have made Block history. Their Mount Eliza home sold for $4.72 million, giving them a $1.27 million profit and a record total prize of $1.87 million.
House 4 sold $1.27 million over its $3.45 million reserve on Sunday night. Nine called that profit a first for the show. Add the $100,000 winner's prize and host Scott Cam's $500,000 "prize pool" (a real swimming pool filled with cash and bonus prizes), and the pair took home $1.87 million. Nine and realestate.com.au both describe it as the biggest win in the show's 22 seasons.
The record came during a night when every house on Mackillop Place sold. That is a big change from last year, when two homes passed in at Daylesford. This season's five teams shared more than $3.5 million in auction profits.
The front of Courtney and Sev's record-breaking House 4. Image: Nine / The Block
The results
Auction order
House
Team
Reserve
Sold
Profit
Place
1st
House 1
Adam and Jolene
$3.45m
$3,905,000
$455,000
4th
2nd
House 4
Courtney and Sev
$3.45m
$4,720,000
$1,270,000
1st
3rd
House 3
Lisa and Rosco
$3.45m
$4,000,000
$550,000
3rd
4th
House 2
Chantel and Wyatt
$3.45m
$3,817,000
$367,000
5th
5th
House 5
Rick and Tayla
$3.5m (less $50k bonus)
$4,355,000
$905,000
2nd
Sources: Nine, realestate.com.au, New Idea and news.com.au. Rick and Tayla's reserve was $3.5 million, but they won the final week, which took $50,000 off it. In effect, every reserve was $3.45 million.
Inside the winning house
Courtney and Sev were favourites well before auction day. According to Domain, they won six room reveals, and realestate.com.au reports they finished with the most points of any team across the season.
Their House 4 sits in the "Downtown" precinct. It is lower on the site than the three bay-view homes and has a spread-out dual-level layout, with most of the floor space on the ground level and a large deck running out to the pool. Its standout features, as reported by realestate.com.au, include:
$250,000 worth of kitchen appliances, which the pair won in week two and which were sold with the house
a reworked floorplan that turned one bedroom into a guest suite with a kitchenette
a custom marble pendant light developed with Beacon Lighting
a large, and much-debated, wine cellar
Buyer's advocate Nicole Jacobs told realestate.com.au before the auction that the appliance package would appeal to buyers looking for a bigger depreciation schedule.
House 4's kitchen, which came with $250,000 worth of appliances. Image: Nine / The Block
House 4's wine cellar. Image: Nine / The Block
How the record was set
Adam and Jolene's House 1 opened the night, selling for $3,905,000. Just before the auctions started, there was a change to the running order. Quentin McEwing, the agent for House 2, asked Courtney and Sev to move from fourth to second. His reasoning, according to realestate.com.au, was that putting the favourite house early would lift the results that followed.
The bidding on House 4 reached $3.95 million within seconds and went past $4.5 million soon after, before the hammer fell at $4.72 million. "You've blown away the market!" Scott Cam told the pair, as reported by realestate.com.au.
None of the remaining houses got close. news.com.au described Lisa and Rosco's House 3 auction as the longest in Block history, with more than 100 bids over about 40 minutes, and the house sold for $4 million. Chantel and Wyatt's House 2 sold for $3.817 million. Rick and Tayla's House 5, on the biggest block at 1435 square metres, was the last one up. It opened $450,000 above reserve and sold for $4.355 million, which was enough for second place.
The terrace and pool at Adam and Jolene's House 1, one of the three "Uptown" homes with views across Port Phillip Bay. Image: Nine / The Block
What it says about the Peninsula market
Architect Julian Brenchley designed the five homes. The three "Uptown" houses are elevated and look across Port Phillip Bay, the first water views in the show's history. Each of those three also has a lift.
The sale prices are a long way above the local median. realestate.com.au put the reserves at about double Mount Eliza's median house price of $1.72 million. Domain's figure for the suburb is $1.64 million. The results also came in a soft Melbourne market, after Domain reported a 3.1 per cent fall in the city's median house price over the June quarter.
Mark Nunn, the agent for House 3, told New Idea that the ocean views were "a really big drawcard". Before the auction, McEwing told Domain that he estimated the land and replacement building cost for each home at $5 million to $5.5 million. Matt Jackson, CEO of David Reid Homes, told New Idea that coastal homes with good views usually add 20 to 25 per cent to a property's standard value.
realestate.com.au also pointed out a tax angle. Under the changes in the May federal budget, buyers of these homes can still claim negative gearing and the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount, which will no longer apply to established properties. These were also the first Block auctions held under Victoria's new price transparency rules, which require reserves to be published at least a week before auction day.
The pool at Rick and Tayla's House 5, which sold for $4.355 million. Image: Nine / The Block
From the show's lowest payout to its highest
Last year's Daylesford auctions had $2.99 million reserves, and two homes passed in. The total payout was $749,999.10, the lowest since 2011. This year, Courtney and Sev's $1.87 million on its own is more than double that.
Nine has confirmed that the 2027 season will move to Sunbury, on Melbourne's north-west fringe. There, the teams will convert three historic buildings in a former psychiatric hospital into five family homes.
Sources: Nine (nine.com.au), realestate.com.au, New Idea, news.com.au and Domain. All images: Nine / The Block.
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