The Block price guides reveal Nine could face huge loss on sales

The price guides for this year’s Block houses have just been released – and it indicates another dramatic result for the show.

Last year’s Block auctions delivered the most dramatic – and for some couples, disastrous – results in the show’s history, with some properties failing to sell while the winners scored an incredible near-$1.7m profit.

That season of the show was always a bit of a gamble: Pimped-out houses situated close to each other among the paddocks of Gisborne north of Melbourne, the first time The Block had relocated out of the CBD.

This season’s return to Melbourne’s bayside inner suburbs seemed a safer bet. But newly-released price guides for the five Block houses suggest that, even after their extensive renovations, some houses may sell for less than Nine paid for them last year.

The Block host Scott Cam.

Nine paid a collective $14.3m for the five unrenovated 1950s brick homes next to each other on Charming Street, Hampton East, in June and July last year. That includes a suburb record of $3.5m for what would become couple Steph and Gian’s house this season.

But realestate.com.au reports that the price guides for the five now-renovated houses put several of them well under what Nine paid last year. Confusingly, the house Nine paid the most for – Steph and Gian’s – has the lowest price guide, at $2.2m – $2.4m.

If the house does sell within that price guide, it will have changed hands for more than a million dollars less than Nine bought it.

Tom and Sarah Jane were shattered by the result of last season’s auctions – could it happen again this year?

In another surprise, sisters Eliza and Liberty – the most inexperienced renovators this season, who have been shown struggling to master the basics in these early episodes – have ended up with the highest price guide for their house. Nine bought their house for $2.75m, and the price guide for its sale is $2.7m – $2.85m.

Here are all five houses’ price guides, and how much Nine bought them for in June and July last year:

House 1 (14 Charming Street): Kyle and Leslie

Bought by Nine for $3m … Picture: David Crosling

An artist’s impressed of the finished house, price guide $2.5-2.75m. Picture: Supplied

Price guide: $2.5m – $2.75m. Bought by Nine for $3m.

House 2 (16 Charming Street): Leah and Ash

Bought by Nine for $2.3m … Picture: David Crosling

Going to auction for $2.5m – $2.75m. Picture: Supplied

Price guide: $2.5m – $2.75m. Bought by Nine for $2.3m.

House 3 (18 Charming Street): Kristy and Brett

Bought by Nine for $2.75m … Picture: David Crosling

Going to auction with a price guide of $2.5 – $2.75m. Picture: Supplied

Price guide: $2.5m – $2.75m. Bought by Nine for $2.75m.

House 4 (20 Charming Street): Steph and Gian

Bought by Nine for a suburb record of $3.5m … Picture: David Crosling

Selling with a price guide well under that. Picture: Supplied

Price guide: $2.2m – $2.4m. Bought by Nine for $3.5m

House 5 (22 Charming Street): Eliza and Liberty

A price guide of $2.7 – $2.85m. Picture: Supplied

Price guide: $2.7m – $2.85m. Bought by Nine for $2.75m.

So, how do these price guides compare to last year’s on The Block? For the show’s 2022 Gisborne season, all five houses were given the same price guide: $4 – $4.4 million. Closer to auction, they all also received the same reserve: $4.08m.

In the end, only winners Omar and Oz went beyond their price guide, smashing all Block records by selling their property at auction for a jaw-dropping $5,666,666.66.

Fellow contestants Tom and Sarah-Jane were the only other team to sell at auction, making a paltry $20,000 profit above their reserve for their three months of hard work.

The other three houses were all passed in on auction day, with mixed results emerging in the months that followed: Teams Rachel and Ryan and Ankur and Sharon both made profits of around $170,000 when their houses later sold privately for virtually the same price, $4.25m. But Dylan and Jenny emerged as the season’s worst-placed couple when their home finally sold for a reported $3.9 million, $180,000 less than the auction day reserve.