The Block winners Elyse Knowles and Josh Barker will be living in a tent this summer

THEY’VE sold two multi-million-dollar properties and made a tidy profit, but The Block’s Elyse and Josh won’t be living in luxury this summer.

MODEL Elyse Knowles and her partner Josh Barker have been riding waves of success this year.

The couple sold their winning house on The Block in October to comedian Dave Hughes for $3.067 million and last month their own home in Melbourne’s Coburg sold for $1.631 million.

Since the show wrapped, Knowles, 25, has booked several high profile modelling gigs and along with Barker, 28, is a regular fixture on the east coast social scene.

Elyse Knowles on Derby Day. Picture: Ian Currie

Elyse Knowles at Melbourne Cup. Picture: Alex Coppel

The couple regularly walk the red carpet at media events together, including the Spring Racing Carnival, and now are stopped daily by fans on the street.

But the down-to-earth couple will strip away all the bells and whistles this summer, choosing to camp on the beach while they look for their next home.

“We sold our own personal home now. We have gone from two houses to none, so we are homeless,” Knowles told The Today Show on Friday morning.

“I think we will be camping all summer on the beach, which is a good thing. We did sell our home for $1.63 million, which was a record for Coburg, so you beauty.”

The Block winners Josh & Elyse outside their own home in Melbourne’s Coburg. Picture: David Crosling

When news.com.au spoke to Knowles last week, the couple were just about to move out of their home and had not found a new place to live.

“We have no clue where we’re going. Pretty sure we’re going to be living in a tent,” Knowles said.

The pair are no strangers to uncomfortable living conditions. They lived among smashed walls and unfinished surfaces during the two years they spent renovating their Coburg home.

“We lived with no walls for ages because we’d knocked them all down. It was freezing in winter because the wind was gushing in so we slept in our puffer jackets, sometimes on the floor,” Knowles told news.com.au last week.

“We showered outside in an outdoor shower that we built because we ripped down the rest of our house. We showered in our bathers outside, saying ‘Hi neighbours!’”

Elyse Knowles at Tamarama Beach to help raise funds for Havaianas/Life Saving Australia charity initiative Thongs2SaveLives. They are encouraging Aussies to wear their thongs on Friday 1st December. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Selling the house they’ve lived in for the past three years was a bittersweet moment.

“This is our first baby,” Knowles said of the three-bedroom, two-bathroom Californian bungalow.

“We put so many hours and blood, sweat and tears into this thing and now it’s sold to someone else. It is difficult, it makes me really upset that we have to leave everything.

“But it’s time to move on and we’re ready for the next renovation.”

They also love to spend time outdoors and get away from the city.

“Every weekend we like to go on an adventure to go do something fun, go to the beach or skateboarding,” Knowles said.

“Anything like that to get away from the environment. It’s very refreshing and we gain energy from that.”

Josh Barker and Elyse Knowles celebrate following the finale of The Block. Picture: Channel Nine.

The young couple was praised by fans of The Block for their easy going attitude and their decision to avoid the petty drama that preoccupied some of the other contestants.

They met in Byron Bay — Barker’s hometown — 4.5 years ago and settled in Melbourne together shortly afterwards.

Knowles’s public profile has exploded since appearing on The Block and the exposure has helped her book more modelling gigs.

But being on a construction site is very different to a fashion photoshoot and Knowles enjoyed the change of scene.

Picture: Nicki Connolly

“All the tradies, they don’t care what they look like. You can wear anything, you can wake up any day without makeup and no one judges you. I absolutely loved that and I would wear what I wanted,” she said, adding that she and Parker entered the competition on their own and weren’t approached by Nine to sign up.

“It was a really scary thing coming into The Block. It could have gone either way — it could have had a negative impact on my career.

“There’s this stereotype of a model. Even the contestants on the show — Jason and Sarah and Ronnie and Georgie said it — they said, ‘Oh, she’s a model, who knows what she can do.’

“I wanted to prove to them and everyone else that I am a model but there’s more to me than that.

“We’re exactly the same as you and we’ve worked bloody hard to get where we are in our jobs, just like everyone else.”

Elyse Knowles for Bras N Things’s Vamp collection.

She says she’s now regularly approached by mums on the street thanking her for being a positive role model for young women.

“I like to show women and girls that we can do whatever boys do and we can get our hands dirty,” she said.

“I am a tomboy, this is who I am. I wanted to be 100 per cent myself. Maybe I’m a little bit crazy, but I like to show that I am down to earth and everyone can do this.”

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Originally published as The Block winners Elyse Knowles and Josh Barker will be living in a tent this summer