My one big problem with this year’s Block homes

They’re asking for more than $4m a house at this year’s Block auctions - but there’s one glaring problem with the “overstuffed” homes.

OPINION

We finally got a proper look at this year’s five finished Block homes in all their glory this week, as the contestants finished landscaping their expansive properties ahead of this weekend’s auction.

But one word came to my mind when looking at several of the properties: Overstuffed.

It pains me to say it as they’ve been my favourite teams all season, but the worst culprits are Tom and Sarah-Jane and Omar and Oz (who, as it happens, both scored highest with the judges for landscaping week).

Omar and Oz's yard, complete with golf course.

Their yards look like they’ve been locked in a race to open Gisborne’s first theme park: Golf courses, basketball courts, adventure playgrounds, even a pony enclosure.

I guess you have to admire their restraint in not installing a bungee jump or a Gravitron.

With each team given mammoth $90k budgets for landscaping week, it seems at some point Scott Cam needed to jump in and paraphrase Jurassic Park’s Dr. Ian Malcolm: “You contestants were so preoccupied with whether you could, you didn’t stop to think if you should.”

Tom and Sarah-Jane's basketball court (and pony enclosure).

To my mind, the couple who’ve nailed the brief best are Rachel and Ryan. Their game-changing landscaping feature is a vineyard in the front of the house, with the option for any prospective buyer to have it externally managed.

That’s the “treechange” dream right there: Looking out over your own private vineyard, drinking the wine it produces, while being rich enough to not actually have to do lift a finger in taking care of it.

Rachel and Ryan's vineyard will be stunning when it grows in.

The contestants’ manic push to cram their properties full of value-add mod cons reached its nadir when Sharon and Ankur – who’d already had their finances frozen due to poor budgeting – repeatedly insisted they just couldn’t live with themselves if they didn’t install a helipad in their yard.

Never mind the fact that the OTT feature would’ve cost around $20,000 to install, with no guarantee it would ever be used by any future owner (Gisborne is a 45-minute drive out of Melbourne. Taking the chopper feels a bit gauche, hun).

Oz and Omar's garden / golf course.

Tom and Sarah-Jane's play equipment.

Surely, with a hillside country property, “less is more” is a good design ethos? Let the views do the talking – make sure you’ve got a good deck and a fireplace to gather around with a glass of wine, and let nature put on a show. Isn’t that the whole point of a treechange?

Fill every square metre of your property with bells and whistles and the effect ends up something like the classic Simpsons episode when Homer was given free reign to design his own car:

Homer's car: Just because you can, doesn't mean that you should.

I have to wonder whether those kangaroos occasionally spotted during filming will scarper once the buyers move in, with the sounds of basketballs bouncing and children screaming on the flying fox, and the golf balls flying through the air.

I’m not the only one who suspects the show has overegged the pudding this year. 2021 Block contestant Kirsty Lee Akers confessed this week she “has a bad feeling” about this year’s auctions, given the houses’ sky-high asking prices are around double what other luxury properties in the area have been commanding.

And many viewers seem to agree:

Less is more. Get rid of the pony area and golf hole. #TheBlock

— Bernadette (@kissbystarlight) October 31, 2022

Out of all the yard features, the one hole golf course is the one I think is the biggest waste. #theblock

— Bronwyn Cook (@broncook76) October 25, 2022

A tennis court, inbuilt trampoline mini golf is tacky af. #TheBlock

— Dino (Browns is Browns) (@drakemaddox28) October 24, 2022

So after wanting to put in a helicopter pad, a tennis court, a trampoline now the boys are putting in a put put golf course? It's less a house at this point than it is a lame country town theme park #TheBlock#TheBlockAU

— Colonel Kickhead (@colonelkickhead) September 18, 2022

#theblock not sure about the pony enclosure, too much! Love the water features and the pool

— Bel 🦋🐝💙💛 (@bel_downunder) October 31, 2022

But what do I know - I can’t front up the $4m+ asking price for any of these properties.

Perhaps those who can are used to a more luxe living situation (I recently felt like I’d “made it” when I moved into a flat with a working dishwasher for the first time in my adult life).

Still, I can’t help but think some of this year’s contestants rather missed the “treechange” memo, and have turned one small slice of country Victoria into a sea of pimped-out suburban McMansions.