The Block 2023: How the auctions unfolded, house by house. The highest of highs and the lowest of lows
After 13 weeks of hard work, renovation, midnight painting sessions and more than a touch of drama it all came down to auction night on The Block.
Here’s how auction night unfolded on the season finale of The Block 2023.
The Block 2023 auction order
It was decided that House 4 would go first, followed by House 5, but determining the auction order for houses 1, 2 and 3 was more difficult, with the teams unable to come to an agreement.
After hours of deliberation, the auction order had to be decided by pulling names out of a hat.
Here’s how each auction unfolded.
| Order | House | Reserve | Sold for |
Prize money
|
| 1 | House 4: Steph & Gian | $3,350,000 | $5,000,000 | $1,650,000 + $100,000 |
| 2 | House 5: Eliza & Liberty | $3,250,000 | $4,300,000 | $1,050,000 |
| 3 | House 3: Kristy & Brett | $2,970,000 | $3,035,000 | $65,000 |
| 4 | House 1: Kyle & Leslie | $2,970,000 | $3,100,000 | $130,000 |
| 5 | House 2: Leah & Ash | $2,970,000 | Passed in | $0 |
House 4 auction: Steph and Gian
It’s fair to say that anything can happen on auction day, and Steph and Gian’s certainly had it all.
Auctioneer Tom Panos, who auctioned Omar and Oz’s winning home in Gisborne in 2022, described the property as “The Chosen One”, and with the most room wins and buyer interest, it was a fitting description.
Block regular Danny Wallis was front and centre, alongside “Mr Lambo” Adrian Portelli, buyer’s agent Frank Valentic and a surprise face, comedian Dave Hughes.
Wallis kicked off proceedings in his signature bidding style with an opening bid of $3,999,999.99.
Cue jaw-dropping from everyone at Wallis’ whopping bid.
After confirming the property was on the market, Valentic quickly countered with a bid of $4 million.
Then just as the auction was about to build momentum, it was dramatically halted as a woman in the crowd fainted. An ambulance was called, while Eliza and Liberty’s father, an Adelaide doctor, rushed to attend to the woman before paramedics arrived.
As she recovered and was taken away, auctioneer Tom Panos said the woman’s mother had asked for the auction to continue.
Once it resumed, Wallis teased with two waves of his paddle, but didn’t make a bid. As the property was about to sell, Portelli swooped in with a huge bid of $5 million, blowing the competition out of the water. Both Valentic and Wallace were out. “He can have it,” Wallis said.
The $5 million sale price was $1.65 million above the property’s reserve.
“It hasn’t really sunk in yet,” agent Aaron Hill told Domain after the result. “You’ve got your big buyers, you’ve got your Danny Wallises, Adrian Portellis and Frank Valentics, but you just never know until the day … and for that to happen again [a winning result], you’ve got to be pretty happy, I suppose. But to get that much money over, I couldn’t believe that – I didn’t think it would happen again like last year.”
When asked how they managed to pull off two massive back-back wins, Hill pointed to the support of the team he worked with.
Speaking after the huge result Steph and Gian said they were lost for words.
“We didn’t expect that, we really didn’t,” Gian told Domain.
“We knew that to put ourselves in a strong position to win The Block we need to sell for four (million) because our reserve was so much higher.
“I think last year showed that you have to be willing to sacrifice everything and walk away with nothing and we are just so grateful that Adrian Portelli saw the value in our house that we saw as well. That’s what everyone would hope out of an auction.”
Steph said when they were given their reserve price, the highest of all the houses, she was overwhelmed and didn’t think they would manage a sale.
“We were like all good, November 4, House 4, 4 million, so we were manifesting fours and then he (Portelli) comes out with a five,” she said.
“The Block has changed our lives and we are so grateful.”
“It was the most eventful auction I’ve ever done in my life,” auctioneer Tom Panos told Domain.
“I’ve never, in 37 years of real estate, I’ve never seen anyone faint during an auction and it was just weird that it ends up happening on The Block.”
House 5 auction: Eliza and Liberty
The much-loved sisters were up next, and expectations were high after the mammoth result of the previous auction.
Again, Wallis, Portelli, Valentic and Hughes were in the room and Jellis Craig agent and auctioneer Nick Renna was ready to kick things off.
Wallis again kicked things off, making a similar bid to the previous auction: $3,099,999.99.
Portelli jumped in with a bid of $4.1 million.
Valentic chimed in, asking: “Are we on the market?” before making a phone call – and, in a strange move, Portelli made another bid of $4.2 million, bidding against himself.
Valentic said he needed more time to consult with his clients but then announced that he had instructions to “sell it to Adrian”.
Then, bizarrely, Portelli made another bid against himself, of $4.3 million. And, with that, he secured House 5 – his second for the day – giving Eliza and Liberty a massive $1.050 million profit.
“It’s a huge result for the girls,” Renna said after the auction.
“It was one of the strangest auctions I’ve ever done. But I guess Adrian was doing that [bidding against himself for a reason] – you’re trying to coax other buyers to come into the bidding, and there was a stage there where Frank was about to call his buyer so I guess Adrian’s tactic was to get on top to stop that phone call from happening, which he did – and did really well.”
Speaking after the auction, the girls were visibly emotional.
“We felt really strangely calm [ahead of the auctions],” Liberty said. “Once reserves were told to us yesterday, it was almost like a weight had been lifted off. We were like, ‘It’s very unlikely that we’re going to win,’ but it almost took the pressure off … we felt very at peace with whatever result came, which is why we are so emotional today because, truly, we did not expect anywhere near this.”
House 3 auction: Kristy and Brett
House 3, the third auction of the day, was always going to be interesting. With the first two auctions generating massive results, could the momentum be sustained?
At the Domain Listings Challenge, Portelli chose House 3 as his favourite so it was no surprise to see him there.
Again, Wallis, Valentic and Hughes were in the room, as well as some other new faces: buyer’s advocate Martin Fox snr from Whitefox Real Estate (not to be confused with judge Marty Fox who is his nephew) and David Deicke, who owns Melbourne Collision Repair Centre.
This auction played out much more like ones you’d see on any suburban street on a Saturday; slower pace, smaller bids and rising tension.
Auctioneer and co-listing agent Sam Inan of Belle Property accepted the first bid of $2.8 million from Valentic, which was $170,000 shy of the $2.97 million reserve. Fox was quick to fire back with $2.9 million and the two continued to counter-bid. Wallis jumped in with his first and only bid on House 3 of $2,960,000.50.
Fox was not here to play games and quickly countered with a bid of $2.97 million.
Valentic asked, “Are we on the market?” and Inan confirmed, “Yes we are on the market and we are selling.”
It’s here that bidding stalled, and watching on Kristy and Brett were seething.
“This is so off script after everything we discussed with him last night,” Brett said.
Inan returned and the auction continued with a $2.98 million bid from Valentic, who was back in. Again, Fox fired back with a counter and the two battled with rapid-fire bids in smaller increments under $10,000.
After 27 bids, it was sitting with Fox at $3.035 million. Inan paused to consult with Kristy and Brett, who let their anger with their agent be known.
The auction resumed with Valentic making a call, but there were no more bids to be had and Kristy and Brett netted a $65,000 profit. Fox was acting on behalf of a local Melbourne family who bought the property as an investment, attracted by the capital depreciation and high rental yield, and planning to put it on the rental market.
“We’re really disappointed,” Inan said after the auction.
“At the end of the day, you want your clients to make as much money [as they can] – particularly off the back of the first two results. Obviously, the money in the room [was] not there for everybody. They’ve put all their firepower into those first two larger blocks.
“If you look at previous years, there’s always the risk that you could make nothing or $20,000. It’s still not record-breaking in terms of [the result] but for them, I can completely empathise – it would just be soul-crushing.
“The Block is so surreal in terms of real life. We would be popping champagne right now if we made $65,000 above reserve, but it’s the fact that they only made the difference above reserve that’s disappointing. Right now, we’d be high-fiving and hugging each other but unfortunately, that’s not how it plays out on The Block.”
Deicke, who had engaged the services of Valentic for the day, told Domain after the auction he was keen on House 3 until he realised who he was bidding against.
“I wanted the corner one and good friends of mine were bidding again and we realised we were bidding against each other,” he said. “She said. ‘Please can I have it?’ so I thought I’d do the right thing. They’re good friends of mine, good people.”
House 1 auction: Kyle and Leslie
After the disappointment of Kristy and Brett’s results, the mood had shifted and Kyle and Leslie were not sure what to expect.
All the big players were present for the auction of the home dubbed “The House of Curves”: Portelli, Wallis, Valentic and Hughesy (who still had not made a bid).
Auctioneer Scott Kennedy-Green got the ball rolling and Valentic beat Wallis to the punch with an opening bid of $2.9 million followed by a bid from Wallis: $2,951,000.09.
Wallis then boldly yelled “Sold”, and Kennedy-Green replied, “Oh, not yet.”
Portelli jumped in with a bid of $3.1 million. Valentic confirmed if the property was on the market and spent time on the phone chatting to his clients, waiting for instructions, but eventually bowed out.
Portelli scored another Block home and Kyle and Leslie made $130,000 in profit.
Making his fifth appearance as a Block selling agent, McGrath’s Josh Stirling was not surprised by the result.
“It was always a tale of two different markets, with the bigger houses [House 4 and 5] and the three smaller houses [House 1, 2 and 3],” he said.
“Auction order is everything; it’s really critical when it comes to The Block. We’ve won it three times from position two, we’ve been fourth twice and come third twice, so I really think auction order says a lot.
“With these heavy hitters, with so much money, they probably scare away a lot of [who] would be normal buyers for this demographic in this area, and unfortunately that then makes the buying pool very skinny. You see this disparity between someone making $1.65 million and someone maybe getting zero, and that’s a bitter pill to swallow …
“Obviously you have to … have the right house in the first place, but for the contestants, it’s an incredibly emotional process and if you’re on the wrong end of that, or the right end, it changes your life, really.”
House 2 auction: Leah and Ash
The last auction was the shortest of the day, with Buxton agent and auctioneer Halli Moore trying his best to get the crowd involved and interested in bidding on Leah and Ash’s colourful home.
All four heavy hitters were again present, but stayed quiet for the duration of the auction. Only Valentic made a bid of $2.9 million, $70,000 short of the $2.97 million reserve.
Moore left the auction to consult with Leah and Ash before returning to announce he was passing in the property at $2.9 million. Negotiations were still underway at the time of publication.
It was confirmed that the person who had the medical episode during House 4’s auction had intended to bid on House 2, but was unable to after she left the auction in an ambulance.
Valentic was negotiating for interested buyers, while Hughes was keen to bring his wife in to look around.
“We didn’t want to go fifth, but now in retrospect, it’s actually been really good,” Leah said. “It gave us a chance to see how things played out for the previous two auctions.”
She said that, after the $2.9 million bid was placed, it felt very slow, and “you can see it in Danny’s face and you can see it in Adrian’s face when they lose complete interest – and I saw it straight away, so it was easy for us”.
“We called our agent – he is so respectful, he didn’t go back out there and do the whole ego bid. I said, ‘Not a dollar more,’ and he goes, ‘Copy that,’ and that’s exactly what he did.”
Agent Halli Moore told Domain that passing in the property was the right strategy.
“Passing in at auction happens all the time and you’ve got to make that strategy work if you think you can do better. We were all on the same page in terms of our decision to do that,” he said.
“I didn’t want to run the risk of just sort of trickling to a reserve price when I think we can negotiate harder after auction so hopefully that plays out.”
Leah and Ash said they would continue discussions with the intended bidder and Valentic.
Valentic confirmed he had made offers on behalf of clients, including for Deicke.
“I just hope [passing it in] doesn’t backfire on these guys,” he said. “We have a genuine investor, very savvy, sophisticated from Brighton at $3.05 million. So I just hope they don’t come out like the Gisborne contestants.”
We recommend
We thought you might like
States
Capital Cities
Capital Cities - Rentals
Popular Areas
Allhomes
More
