The Block NZ 2022 has one last surprise up its sleeve.
This year's run of the reality TV show has been memorable in lots of ways, but maybe not for the reasons the producers would wish.
The winning profit was the lowest in the show's 10-year history and the brutal turn in the New Zealand housing market led to last week's shock decision by TV Three to cancel plans to bring it back next year.
But OneRoof has learned of one more twist: this year's losing house has ended up selling for more than the winning property.
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OneRoof reported that the last of this year's Block NZ homes had sold this week - more than two months after the show came to a heart-breaking conclusion.
The listing agent for Quinn and Ben Alexandre's house on Ringi Lane, in Orewa, on Auckland's northern fringes, told OneRoof that the sale price exceeded the $1.145 million that Block winners Chloe Hes and Ben Speedy got for their home in September.
Ray White agent Dylan Turner, who marketed the three-bedroom home with colleague Zoe Turner, said that he was unable to reveal what Quinn and Ben's house sold for thanks to a confidentiality clause in the contract, but that the final selling price was the highest of all four Block 2022 houses. Even so, Quinn and Ben won't see any money from the sale.
The couple's three-bedroom townhouse had found a buyer after passing in at auction, but the deal - reportedly $1.16m, $39,000 below the reserve - fell through and the property was put back on the market for sale at the start of November.
The listing for the home highlighted its Block pedigree and described it as being full of “dazzling light and luxe styling”.
The three-bedroom house on Ringi Lane, in Orewa, Auckland, was stylish and dazzling. Photo / Supplied
The property sold at the start of this month for an undisclosed sum. Photo / Supplied
Turner said the property went unconditional earlier this week and settles on January 19.
Even if the sale price exceeded the couple's initial reserve of $1.199m, it’s unlikely they would receive any money. “From what I understand, if it does not sell on the night and it's passed in, the contestants receive no money if it sells for more money, thereafter,” Turner said.
All the properties featured on The Block are owned and put up for sale by the show's producers. Contestants who take part in The Block get to keep any profit their house makes, with the amount calculated by how much the house sells over the set reserve.
Quinn and Ben would have earned nothing from the first post-auction deal. To find out that their property then sold for the highest amount would be a gut-wrenching turn of events since they had come back to the show with the intention of winning big, after their first appearance on The Block, in Season three, ended in just a $10,000 profit.
Quin and Ben with Block host Mark Richardson during the grand finale. Photo / Discovery
The latest sale came after an auction campaign in which Turner was given free rein to allow the public through the property. “Within the first week of the auction campaign, I had a three way multi-offer. It was several different unconditional and conditional offers. The vendors chose to take a conditional offer and withdrew [the property] from the auction campaign.
“It shows you the power of the auction and the ability to sell something well in a market where you can actually demonstrate the property. The Block process makes it much harder to get unconditional buyers on the day.”
Turner says it was unfortunate for the contestants that they weren’t able to make a profit. “The contestants knew they were in a competition at the outset, but they didn’t do so well out of it. That’s not a fault of any agencies, or locations. It was just [the sale took place] at the wrong time. It was right in the middle of winter and the market was taking a dive.”
The earlier sale that fell through on Quinn and Ben’s home was due to finance, Turner said. “The banks are tightening up tremendously. It's unfortunate that particular party could not pull their funds together. It fell over on that basis.”
Turner said the home was bought by a couple moving up to the area from the North Shore. “They are very happy buyers,” he said.
Turner said he celebrated the final sale with a Chinese hot pot dinner. “We’re absolutely thrilled that we have all the properties sold. It has been a bit of a grind.
“Discovery can move onto the next page. They’ve put a pause on the next season and I think rightly so. We’ve had a bit of a download with Discovery on the things that didn’t go so well. The properties they [have] for the next season are fantastic. They’re just beautiful homes. We’re just waiting for the market to swing. It works better in a market where you’ve got a bit of sun and not in the middle of winter.
“Let’s be fair to Discovery, Warner and ourselves. It’s disappointing that people make negative comments online when they don’t know the true ins and outs. We all went through two years of Covid and they put their show on pause. Then all of a sudden the market opened and they needed to scramble to find a location that was going to fit their timeline. And honestly it was touch and go on whether we could even get this one running.”
Turner added the buyers love the shape of the property, which is on a corner site, its elevation, the polished floor, the décor chosen by Quinn and Ben. “They fell in love with it. All three buyers, to be fair, fell in love with it. I could have sold it four times over. It’s the plum. I said it from day one on The Block that house one, Quinn and Ben's, was the plum, and it has sold for the most money out of all four of them.”
