Last night we watched The Block go up for auction, and all of the four competing couples snared buyers willing to pay well over the reserve price, thank god. The mood was celebratory all around as team-by-team the contestants who’d spent the past 10 weeks slaving away in renovation boot camp walked away with hundreds of thousands in dollar profits – a result that was frankly a relief after last year’s depressing finale when only one of the properties got sold.
As predicted, the couple who made the highest profit thereby winning the grand prize of an extra $100,000, was Brad and Lara who had the biggest of the four properties and also were the first team to go to auction. Their three bedroom terrace ended up selling for $1,620,00 giving them a $506,000 profit over the reserve price.
There were no sour grapes about the win, though, because the other teams all pocketed huge profits with the auctions yielding the following results:
Dan & Dani: Reserve price was $992,000 and it sold for $1,440,000. Profit = $448,000.
Sophie & Dale: Reserve price was $965,000 and sold for $1,330,000. Profit = $355,000.
Mike & Andrew: Reserve price was $966,00 and sold for $1,400,001.01. Profit = $434,001.01.
Mike and Andrew’s sexy/urban/sleazy bachelor pad spurned the longest bidding war of all the properties with several bidders throwing their hats in the ring, most noticeably ‘Energy Watch guy’, also known as entrepreneur Danny Wallis the head of a consortium that bought Energy Watch in May. Wallis proved a memorable presence because of his Energy Watch branded t-shirt and because of his insistence on bidding in supremely irritating increments that WERE NOT WHOLE NUMBERS.
Wallis won the property and hijacked the final auction with his attention-seeking ploy, but ultimately his attempt to spin up publicity backfired because there’s something about people who refuse to bid in nice round numbers that cause inexplicable, irrational rage.
UPDATE: Pedestrian received a phone call from Danny Wallis in relation to a photo that appeared in this post comprising him wearing an Energy Watch t-shirt at the auction with “WHOLE NUMBERS” and “DIE” scribbled over it. While the apologise for getting overly ” target=”_blank”>Finkle on him just because of my strong personal opposition to using cents in auction bids.
Mr Wallis told us that wearing the Energy Watch shirts was all for a bit of fun and that he hadn’t anticipated the amount of publicity or screen-time he ended up receiving. As for his unique bidding style, that’s a technique he implements at public auctions on a regular basis.
