The Block dramas ‘a sign of the times’, presenter says

The season finale - which closed with the auctions of the properties on Sunday (7 November) - has caused some ripples. Not least for the fact that contestants Omar and Oz secured a new  record profit for the show - $1.69 million - via the sale of their rural Victorian home for $5.67 million.

The properties were eventually purchased by regular block buyer Danny Wallis, an IT entrepreneur, while two properties “passed in” - which raised some eyebrows from viewers and contestants alike.

Addressing the surprising result and any controversy behind who bid and why for the winning house, The Block presenter Shelley Craft offered insights on Channel 9’s Today Extra morning show, retrospectively.

“Look, it’s a sign of the times...We had shocking interest rate rises lately. Everyone’s a little bit on edge. We don’t know what’s going to happen next," Ms Craft said.

“The money is just not there in the country at the moment. And look, for us, we love to sell in spring, obviously — it times in wonderfully when we go to air.

“It is selling season, but we’re seeing the same things happen all around the country, all around the world with property at the moment.”

Ms Craft said she was "shocked about how it all played out".

“You know, we knew going into it that auction clearance rates had been quite low there in the 60s. This time last year we're looking for the mid-70s, so this really is as real as reality gets,” she said.

Quashing rumours over bidder legitimacy

When pressed about the social media innuendo regarding whether the bidding was above board, Ms Craft clarified: “Yes, absolutely! A legit buyer!”

“You've got two titans in a room [in] Danny Wallace and the Adrian character, who were going toe to toe.

“Now I don't know if you've got mates that are most willing to chump up a million bucks for you, but I don’t think so,” he laughed.

“He wanted the home and he really did take it to battle with Danny Wallace - and Danny came out on top, so it was a battle of the Titans for our first auction and an extraordinary result for the boys [Omar and Oz],” she confirmed.

“We did hope that would continue across the other four auctions for the day and then play well for everybody, but it just wasn’t to be this year,” she said.

The auctioneer’s point of view

The Adviser’s sister title Real Estate Business spoke exclusively with Tom Panos, the auctioneer conducting the winning bid, during a special edition of Real Estate Exposed with host Phil Tarrant, following the season finale.

The podcast took a look at what really happened in the season finale of the hit show, where Mr Panos explained how - despite being drawn the perceived "short straw" as the first auction for The Block 2022 - he managed to achieve a show record sale of just over $5.6 million for western Sydney friends Omar and Oz, who netted approximately $1.6 million for their 12-week effort.

Mr Panos conceded that the current property market’s “not great”.

From his perspective, the outcome on The Block 2022 - where some vendors secure high profits and others are left high and dry - is one that’s now playing out every weekend.

“The market’s not great. But then, for some reason, some properties get astonishing money. Not only are they getting what they used to get, they’re getting more,” Mr Panos said.

There were two reasons why Omar and Oz saw such an astonishing result, he explained.

The first was the property itself. The second was the fact that it had two people that went on a bidding frenzy — and who wanted to be on television, he said.

“Both those people knew that everyone is watching … prime-time TV,” the auctioneer acknowledged.

“You need to remember that this is highly edited on TV — there [are] a lot of edits.

“Did you know that Danny held my auction up by 40 minutes — he wasn’t there.

“The producers kept saying, ‘just wait, just wait.’ You are talking about sensationalism on TV — a guy making a late entrance with his entourage and his dogs.

“You’ve got another guy that’s pulled up in a Lamborghini, and what you’ve got is a narrative; The guy from The Block and the new man with the new money. The changing of a guard.”

From the auctioneer’s perspective, the reason he was able to achieve such a strong result for Omar and Oz was that “two people wanted it badly” — even though it wasn’t just for them to live in.

“They wanted it because they knew everyone was watching,” he said.

Different times and a different ballgame

Reflecting on the different results achieved between last year’s television series and this year’s, Mr Panos also expects that if The Block auctions had been held in February 2022 — and not in November 2022 — it could have been an entirely different ballgame.

“There would have been more people bidding,” he said.

“This time last year, I did the auction for Luke and Josh — I would have had two to three times the number of bidders. They were flying left, right, and centre.

“If you want to talk about a short auction — my auction last time was shown for about 45 seconds.

“I went up about a million bucks in like 30 seconds. There was FOMO, there was craziness, and you had your normal, traditional buyers bidding with the celebrity buyers.”

While the 2021 competition created some “fierce” bidding, Mr Panos acknowledged that the timing of the latest auctions could not have been more different.

With the “dragon” that is inflation needing to go down from 8 per cent to 3 per cent — and in an area where the median property value is “nowhere near” the reserve prices required to sell this year’s houses featured on The Block, the auctioneer matter-of-factly conceded that “all these things impacted the price.”

You can listen to the episode of Real Estate Exposed, unpacking The Block season finale, here:

[Related: Hot Property: The biggest property headlines from week 17–21 October]