One of the townhouses from the third season of The Block NZ is back on the market for sale – with a sensational twist.
The owner of the three-bedroom property at 26A Newell Street, in Auckland’s Point Chevalier, is selling the property herself with the help of her mum.
Luckily, they are both real estate agents.
Ray White agent Emma Duncan bought the TV home in 2015 when she was looking for a place for herself and her then teenage daughter.
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The sale made the headlines at the time.
The property had flopped at The Block’s auction finale just five months earlier. Contestants Ben and Quinn Alexandre made just $10,000 from the house sale in November 2014, but their buyer netted a gross profit of almost $300,000 when they sold to Duncan for $1.62 million.
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Duncan told OneRoof that the townhouse had been perfect for her and her daughter. “I’d missed out on an auction for a place in Mount Albert and this was the next thing that I found. I didn’t actually know its The Block provenance, I just went along and fell in love and made an offer,” she said of the purchase.
Over the years Duncan has replaced the Block NZ furniture, painted the walls and installed a new carpet. She admitted that apart from the coffee machine, the kitchen barely gets a workout so is like new.
When she found the original consents for the house included a swimming pool, she jumped at the chance to add one.
Competitors Quinn and Ben Alexandre in The Block NZ season three sold the townhouse for $1.335m in the televised auction, earning just $10,000 profit. Photo / Jason Oxenham
The new owner added a swimming pool, a new deck and landscaping just in time for Covid lockdowns. Photo / Supplied
“The timing was perfect, it was booked in just before Covid happened so we got to use it in full [during lockdown], it was amazing,” she said, adding that as these things do, the project extended to new decking and full landscaping but she made sure it was a self-cleaning pool, so no maintenance. The section is 480sqm.
“You wouldn’t get that size now for a townhouse,” she said.
Another big plus is that the townhouse has plenty of off-street parking in addition to the double garage.
The owner jokes the kitchen is like new as, apart from the coffee machine, it barely gets used. Photo / Supplied
The townhouse has been re-floored and re-painted since its television days. Photo / Supplied
The house has a CV of just over $3m and Duncan is expecting something around that price point.
“It’s a pretty tightly-held street, I think there’ve been only two sales in the last year. People leave only to move around the area,” she said.
Point Chevalier holds the record for the top The Block NZ prices – and profits – after the townhouses from the 2021 season all broke the $2m barrier.
However, Ben and Quinn’s run of bad luck continued when they joined The Block NZ: Redemption in 2022. Their house failed to sell at auction, and they went home with just the $10,000 consolation cheque gifted by show sponsor TSB. The property eventually sold in December that year for $1.18m, well below the show’s auction reserve.
-26A Newell Street, Point Chevalier, goes to auction xxx
