The Block star Josh Packham has slammed Channel 9 and said they “got it wrong” by setting the reserve prices too high.
In the season finale of The Block Australia 2022, which aired last night, each team had a reserve of $4,080,000, and whatever their house sold for over that amount, they were able to take home as profit. Two of the five properties didn’t meet the reserve and one made the couple just $20,000 for three months of work.
On the other side of the coin, The Block Australia 2022 winners Omar and Oz’s property sold for $5.666,666 million, meaning the pair walked away with $1,686,666.66, including their $100,000 in prize money for winning. While contestants Rachel and Ryan didn’t meet their reserve at auction, their house sold for $4.2 million dollars after filming wrapped, resulting in them walking away with $169,000 in profits.
Josh Packham, who competed in last year’s season of The Block with his twin Luke, and also starred in Love Australia Australia season two with his brother, has questioned why the reserves were set so high.
“To walk away with nothing, or close to nothing, after giving up three months of your life and working so hard … I couldn’t imagine it. Major, major condolences to those three couples,” he said on Instagram.
He added, “Obviously, Channel 9 got it wrong. They were looking for too high of reserves in this current market. They should have known it was too high for what it is, in Gisborne. If you’re going to spend that much, you at least want privacy, you don’t want to see other houses, so they got that wrong too,” he said, referring to the five luxury homes’ proximity to each other on their parcels of land outside Gisborne, Victoria.
All of this year’s houses were bought by serial The Block house buyer, Danny Wallis. Last season, he bought three of the five houses on offer, but Josh failed to receive a bid from the multi-millionaire.
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Referencing Danny’s part in the season, Josh said; “It’s not really a fair competition anymore – it’s about what Danny Wallis is looking to purchase. He’s very important to the show: He bought three properties on our season, and if he didn’t bid on them they could’ve gone for way closer to the reserve, so he did a huge favour for our season.”
“But it’s sort of becoming an unfair competition now because there’s a recipe – it’s very obvious if you want to win The Block, you need Danny Wallis to bid on your house, and you need a very strong underbidder. If Danny Wallis wants your house, he will keep bidding no matter what: He will go up to six, seven, eight million if necessary, I guarantee you. ”
