for nearly $1.6m over the reserve price, but it was the only sale where the contestants made a sizeable profit.“For most of the contestants it would have been disappointing because they took 12 weeks out of the lives to do this,” Mr Panos said.“The first reason the others didn’t do well was because of the market. It’s not a good time to be selling real estate.
He explained that Channel 9’s choice of location may have been partly motivated by the strong results being achieved across rural areas last year, when Covid lockdowns and remote working arrangements encouraged more people to make a tree-change.“This time last year was the height of exhilaration. We thought to ourselves, the Zoom worker was never returning to the office. This made a difference to The Block choice of location.
The auctioneer said the order of sales made a dramatic difference and Oz and Omar benefited from being first.Mr Panos said being first meant they attracted the “big money” from Danny Wallis, who all the sellers knew would be the biggest spender, and he had to “amortise” how he’d spend the rest of his money at the next auctions after bidding high at the first.