An analysis of 18 seasons of Channel 9's The Block has identified a gap of roughly $152m between what the program's properties cost to acquire and build and what they sold for at auction, according to Real Estate. The review, carried out by the Herald Sun and covering editions from 2011 to 2025, compared reported land purchases and independent assessments of building work against final sale prices. The findings were published on Sunday.
The figures put combined auction results for the 18 editions at $230.3m. Nine is estimated to have paid about $150.8m for the sites, while specialist assessments of construction, labour, materials and fittings added a further $231.8m. Taken together, land and assessed works come to almost $383m — about $152m more than the sums paid by buyers, among them high-profile purchasers Adrian Portelli and comedian Dave Hughes.
Real Estate reports that the comparison is not an audited loss for the network. It sets reported acquisition costs and estimated construction figures against completed sales.
Why it matters
The gap points to how far the expense of the show's luxury builds can run beyond what the market will pay, and it carries a warning for ordinary viewers who might try to take on a similar project. For buyers, it suggests a Block home may contain work that would cost considerably more to replicate than the price paid for the property.
Bradley Beer, chief executive of BMT Tax Depreciation, confirmed that his firm's lifetime assessments broadly reflected the cost of constructing and fitting out the buildings rather than their resale value. He said the calculation excluded other development expenses such as demolition and financing, which means a conventional developer attempting the same build could face a larger shortfall.
Beer said the network can operate on a different financial model because its revenue comes from television and advertising as well as property sales.
Mount Eliza reserves and depreciation estimates
The current season adds another data point. Five newly built homes in Mount Eliza carry an estimated $29.4m in lifetime deductions for investor buyers — a figure that tracks the cost of creating the properties — against combined auction reserves of $17.2m after Rick and Tayla's $50,000 reduction.
Courtney and Sev's house at 9 Mackillop Place has the highest projected lifetime deductions of the five at $6,084,433, including $279,638 in its first full financial year. Beer ranked the latest houses among the best he has seen on the program, citing luxury inclusions and a kitchen understood to have cost about $500,000.
He cautioned that an expensive fit-out does not automatically add the same amount to a home's market value, and that buyers should not mistake potential tax deductions for cash refunds. An eligible owner able to apply Courtney and Sev's entire first-year deduction at an effective tax rate of 47 per cent could cut their tax bill by about $131,400, depending on their circumstances.
Beer said purchasers also need to weigh rental returns, capital growth and ongoing holding costs rather than pursuing the largest deductions. He doubted tax benefits alone accounted for the interest of wealthy regular buyers such as Portelli and Danny Wallis, who may have commercial motives for their purchases.
Buyer caution and local competition
Buyer's advocate Nicole Jacobs, Victorian managing director at Cohen Handler, said the Block name cannot make up for a home that does not suit its buyer. Serious purchasers, she said, will judge the properties on design, finish and liveability against other luxury homes. She also noted the difficulty of finding enough buyers for five homes in the same multimillion-dollar range, regardless of what the production spent.
Madeleine Roberts, director of MR Advocacy, expects some of the Mount Eliza homes could struggle on auction day given cheaper alternatives nearby. She pointed to a four-bedroom, three-bathroom house on more than 1000sq m in Mount Eliza advertised at about $2.3m — roughly $1m below the Block reserves. "The values just aren't really stacking up with what's available right now," Roberts said.
The program's most recent auction finale, in Daylesford in 2025, produced a top sale of $3.41m, but two homes passed in before later selling for $2.15m each and stayed on the market for months.
Attention now turns to the Mount Eliza auctions, where the five homes will test whether buyers agree with the reserves.
