Twenty years of The Block: What did property prices look like in 2003 when it started?

It was 2003 when the first episode of The Block aired. John Howard was the long-serving prime minister, Australia’s population was yet to crack the 20 million mark, the Black Eyed Peas were dominating the pop charts and the median house price across the capital cities was $339,670.

Fast-forward two decades, we’ve been through six prime ministers, our population has ballooned to 26 million and the median price for a house in a major city is $1.02 million. (Oh, and the Black Eyes Peas are still performing – albeit without Fergie.)

The Australian property market has taken some major twists and turns over the past 20 years, heavily shaped by the global financial crisis of 2009, followed by an extensive period of historically low interest rates, strong population growth and, of course, the recent pandemic.

In 2003, the most expensive city in which to buy a home was Sydney, where the median house price sat at $516,000 in the June quarter, according to Domain data. It was significantly cheaper in Canberra ($347,000) and Melbourne ($314,000), while Hobart trailed the pack on $159,000.

In regional Australia, the national median house price was $184,500, compared to $570,000 today.

The first season of The Block was filmed in Bondi, where contestants renovated and sold two-bedroom apartments with a reserve price of $595,000. At the time, Sydney’s median apartment price was $363,000. It’s now $758,000.

Real estate agent and veteran auctioneer David Wood of Belle Property said buying and selling property was now a “more considered decision”.

“Today it’s a much bigger decision for people because of the amount of money it costs,” he said. “Compared to what it was in 2003, the average property price compared to the average wage is substantially higher.”

So, do fewer Aussies own property than they did two decades ago?

Home ownership and costs

Home ownership has only fallen slightly since the turn of the century, when 69 per cent of households in Australia owned their dwellings. This was down to 67 per cent in the 2021 census, but there was a noticeable decline in the proportion of Australians under the age of 40 buying a home.

According to the ABS, 48 per cent of home owners had a mortgage in 2002-2003 and the median loan amount outstanding was $96,000. The average weekly cost for the mortgage and property rates was $246.

Now, roughly 53 per cent of home owners have a mortgage, and the latest data from the ABS pegged the average mortgage for owner-occupiers at $580,000 in mid-2022.

The average weekly housing costs for mortgage holders had risen to $493 by 2020 but it’s likely to be substantially higher now, given interest rates have since climbed.

Bigger is not always better 

According to the ABS, the average floor area of new homes in 2023 was 232 square metres, and it was a similar size 20 years ago. It peaked in 2008 at 252 square metres.

There has been a size variation across states and territories, with new homes in the ACT reaching an average floor size of 259 square metres, increasing by almost 30 square metres since 2002.

Tasmania has the smallest average floor size in new builds – just 182 square metres.

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Alice Stolz, Domain’s national managing editor and a regular expert on The Block said bigger was not always better in the property market.

“Over time at The Block, they’ve stretched into these monstrous-sized properties,” she said, adding that, while the latest season still features family-sized homes, the floor plans are more moderate than before.

“They’re not small but it shows you don’t need to live on a massive footprint to have all the bells and whistles,” Stolz says. “You can get smaller houses that pack a lot of punch.”

Renovating is expensive but we still love DIY

Our national obsession with property and renovation explains The Block’s longevity on our television screens, but it has undoubtedly become much more costly to build and renovate since 2003.

The average cost of building a house in Australia was $179,467 in 2003, according to the ABS. In February this year, that figure stood at $449,436 – and it’s taking significantly longer to build. Construction costs and materials ballooned during the pandemic due to supply-chain issues, filtering down to even the smallest of home DIY projects.

“A true fixer-upper still has great appeal,” Wood said. “But you need deep pockets and there [are fewer] people around with the pockets deep enough to be able to do it.”

So have we fallen out of love with the fixer-upper? “I don’t think that is waning,” Stolz said. “We are a national of perennial renovators. There’s one big reason: affordability.

“It’s often the case that it is more accessible for people to buy a rundown established property. It is still, I think, the best way to get onto the property market. Build up some capital growth and, bit by bit, start to renovate.”

Consumers are now more empowered

In the last two decades, property data and free educational materials have become much more readily available. “As a nation, we have become a lot more knowledgeable about property,” Stolz said.

Buyers have vast resources at their fingertips, such as previous sales histories and detailed insights into particular neighbourhoods.

“It used to be that the agent was the fountain of knowledge,” she said. “Consumers are much more empowered now.”