The winning apartment from eighth season of The Block NZ is back on the market for sale.
The apartment at 3/516 New North Road, in Kingsland, Auckland, sold under the hammer for $1.34 million in the show's live finale in 2019. Contestants Lisa Ridout and Chris “Ribz” Gordon took home $150,000 in prize money, with their property the only one to turn a profit on the night.
The buyers now have the three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in the former fire station on the market. Marketed by Bayleys agent Jono King, it goes to auction November 16.
The listing comes just over week after the current season of The Block NZ wrapped up. That series ended in heartbreak for many of the contestants, with just two of the new-build homes in Orewa, on the northern fringes of Auckland, selling above their reserve.
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The sellers of the Ridout and Gordon's apartment will find the market has changed in Auckland since 2019, with recent Block resales signalling they may walk away winners.
When the property was on the show it attracted the judges' negative attention, especially over the use of colour, but the original listing highlighted much that will be popular with today's buyers: a home automation system, SmartTouch paint and an Eden Park outlook.
The apartment is billed as having box seats views of Eden Park and beyond from the large back patio. Photo / Supplied
Despite clashes with the judges, The Block NZ season eight winners Lisa and Ribz stuck to their guns over their colour and decor choices. Photo / Supplied
One of the three bedrooms in apartment three of the fire station conversion. Photo / Supplied
Two other fire station apartments have since resold, one in October 2020, the other in July 2021 – with variable results.
Last year the ground floor apartment of challenge heroes Stacy and Adam, resold at the peak of the market for $2.1m, yielding the owners – former Block producer and television supremo Julie Christie and her daughter – a tidy $620,000 profit in two years.
The earlier buyers of contestants Sophia and Mikaere’s penthouse weren’t so lucky when they put the apartment back on the market just six months after the programme aired. That sale finally settled in October 2020 for $1.515m, less than the $1.6m paid after the televised auction.
The three-bedroom house on Newell Street, in Point Chevalier, from the 2014 season, re-sold for $3.182m in July last year. Photo / Supplied
In other parts of Auckland, The Block NZ resellers have fared better.
Re-sales of 2015 season’s Villa Wars villas on Haig and Renfrew avenues in Auckland’s Sandringham have yielded tidy profits. The Haig Avenue house that sold for $1.272m on screen resold for $1.925m in 2020, a gain of $653,000 in five years. In May this year that season’s winning Renfrew Avenue villa around the corner fetched $2.085m – $735,000 more than it earned on the night.
One of the biggest re-sale gains in recent times was a three-bedroom house from season three of The Block NZ on Newell Street in Point Chevalier. That townhouse sold under the hammer in July last year for $3.182m, a whopping $1.712m more than second-place contestants Maree and James – who also placed second in this year’s The Block NZ Redemption season – had sold it for in the 2014 season’s auction.
The winner of The Block NZ: Villa Wars 2015 season on Renfrew Avenue, in Sandringham, Auckland, re-sold in May this year for $2.085m. Photo / Supplied
