We’re all familiar with the drudgery of capitalism by this point – goods and services are acquired through the exchange of money. Boring! And so predictable.
But when it comes to real estate, they add a little razzle-dazzle to the tired old formula: the auction.
To buy a house at auction, you must compete with a bunch of other people who also want that house, while a man with a hammer screams numbers at you and makes you do rudimentary maths. Honestly, if nobody were wearing pants, then it would be exactly like my recurring nightmares.
And in The Block’ s finale, we get to see five of these auctions play out.
For the uninitiated, every dollar above the reserve price gets pocketed by the contestants, with the overall winner taking home an extra $100,000. This year there’s also the prize pool, which adds another $500,000 worth of fancy prizes into the mix.
Block winners have become millionaires overnight as a result – while others, including two teams from last year’s season in Daylesford – can spend 12 weeks working their fingers to the bone only to go home empty-handed.
Let’s hope all the prospective buyers – in an extremely tough housing market – feel like spending money.
It’s been a while since the contestants have all hung out, but they’re back together, and no longer living in a share house, which must be nice. They’ve all got to experience a bit of life where they don’t have to build houses every day. The biggest news while they’ve been away from The Block : Lisa gave birth to a small child (in the shower), which really shows she’s an overachiever. The most I ever achieve in the shower is coming up with amazing comebacks to arguments I lost years ago.
First on the agenda is deciding the order all the houses are auctioned. And considering all these contestants are famously meek and have spent the season becoming best friends, everyone is confident that this will be an easy negotiation. Because the way it works on The Block is that the show sadistically makes the contestants sort out the order themselves – and if they can’t reach a decision, it’s left to random chance.
This is important because the auction order can have a lot of consequences – the first house can set a precedent for the rest of the properties , for example . People later in the auction order would worry about buyers drying up by the time their house was reached. Nobody wanted a situation like last year, where only the first house sold well, with two properties failing to sell at all.
In the car on the way over, Lisa and Rosco and Adam and Jolene, who have clearly formed a friendship and an unspoken alliance, strategised about their optimal order. Meanwhile, both Chantel and Wyatt and Courtney and Sev in separate cars, had some feelings about the House 1 and House 3 couples.
“Lisa’s head annoyed me this morning,” said Wyatt, which is a pretty good indication of everyone being sick of everyone else.
“I think this is going to be frosty,” predicted Courtney.
The conversation started tentatively with Lisa and Rosco offering to go first, with some strategy justifying them – they had a bunch of registered bidders and a lot of interest online for their house. Tayla also offered to go first, but I think she was just trying to be helpful.
But after that, pretty much everyone else wanted to go second. While things didn’t get heated, it was hard to reach a consensus – until Domain’s Alice Stolz suggested that House 1, being the winner of the Domain Buyers Jury and having significant interest, lead the charge.
The order ended up being chronological: House 1, House 2, House 3, House 4, and House 5 – with the logic being that it would divide into almost two separate auctions between the uptown and downtown houses.
On auction day, as everyone is getting ready, House 2’s agent approached Courtney and Sev and offered to swap places. His reasoning was sensible: it would be better for everyone, including House 2, if the girls went earlier.
Despite representing Chantel and Wyatt, he told the girls: “You are the clear favourites, you are the best contestants in 22 years, hopefully you win this.”
Chantel and Wyatt also took this pretty sensibly, saying: “We’re pretty nervous but we’re gonna take his advice.”
The order ended up being: House 1, House 4, House 3, House 2, and finally House 5.
“Just scared as hell, absolutely so scared,” Jolene said as they entered the auction-watching room with Scotty Cam. Adam is also sporting a fresh moustache for Movember, which Jolene diplomatically says that she “doesn’t love”.
Jolene and Adam are stressed as the bidding gets underway.
Block buying royalty Danny Wallis makes the first bid of $3,500,000.52 – and then the bids are climbing.
“It’s gone nuts,” says buyers advocate Frank Valentic on the phone to his buyer.
Jolene is literally vibrating with excitement, while Scotty asks Adam if he has “pressed the mute button”, because he’s so tense and silent.
Adam and Jolene end up selling for $3.905 million, making them a $455,000 profit, and starting off big for the show.
Afterwards, they both have a cry, and Jolene says: “It changes everything; it means we don’t have to go away to work, we can stay home.”
But they’re still clearly tense – while this has been a great result, they have to wonder if they will also win The Block entirely after such a good start.
Next up, thanks to the last-minute switcheroo, are Courtney and Sev.
And Sev and Courtney have been incredibly ambitious the entire show – which has led to some of the other contestants accusing them of having benefited from favouritism, and some pretty nasty online commentary.
“The most competitive two I’ve ever met in my life,” says Scotty Cam as he sits down with the girls ahead of their auction.
“First goal was to get on the show, second to do pretty well, third is to win,” Sev says, breaking it down to Scotty. Only one thing left to do!
The auction launches as Frank Valentic opens the bidding with $3.4 million. Bidding then jumps to $3.95 million, and Courtney and Sev overtake Adam and Jolene with a $500,000 profit. The camera cuts to Jolene, who shows a flicker of disappointment.
Danny Wallis adds some of his usual maths shenanigans into the mix, which I refuse to engage with, because making me do subtractions while watching reality TV is deeply offensive to me.
“You’re going to make a million bucks here, I can feel it,” Scotty says. “This hasn’t happened in a long time on The Block , I can tell you.”
There is a man in a BOSS hat who really wants this place – he is not giving up. The bidding goes back and forth, and continues to rise.
Courtney and Sev sell to the man in the BOSS hat for $4.72 million, nabbing them a huge $1.27 million profit.
They are clutching each other so tightly and screaming so much that it actually looks like they might hurt each other. “You’ve got me screaming too,” says Scotty.
“I think that’s impossible to beat,” Scotty adds.
Then we’re on to Lisa and Rosco – despite not winning anywhere near as many room reveals as the previous houses, there’s a lot of interest in their house from prospective buyers, with 11 registered bidders. It also wins the dubious honour of being the house I’d buy if I was a billionaire.
First, we get introduced to their new baby, Jude, who was born only eight days ago. Insane that Lisa even made it, frankly. I need a nap because I stayed up late recapping this show, so I can’t imagine how tired she must be.
Danny Wallis launches bidding with $ 3,777,000.77, immediately taking Lisa and Rosco over reserve. Bids are climbing but in tiny increments – $1000 at times. The auction goes on forever – so long that Scotty takes a sandwich break, and chairs are brought in for the other contestants.
I watched this auction live and can confirm it went on for a massive 42 minutes, which is much longer than the rest.
Finally, it climbs to $4 million, and Lisa and Rosco have sold, making a $550,000 profit.
“We’re so so grateful,” says a teary Rosco.
“Proud of each other,” adds Lisa. It’s an incredibly sweet success.
Now we’re heading to Chantel and Wyatt’s House 2, which has been moved back in the order after advice from their real estate agent. It’s a strategic move – they don’t have many registered bidders, and came into auction as the only house in Block history to not win a single room reveal. This is probably the hardest property to sell – especially if you listen to the judges.
“I’m so nervous,” Chantel says. Chantel and Wyatt admit they’d be happy for any money today. Chantel is so nervous that she basically bursts into tears immediately.
Frank starts with a $3.3 million bid, and after two more bids they hit reserve.
Danny bids again – $3.7 million, and they’re well over reserve now. Chantel is in tears, but they’re happy.
The bids continue, but pretty slowly. At one point Danny decides to walk out of the auction – but no one is sure why. Watching it live, we could see that he’d gone out to vape and chat.
After a couple more bids, Chantel and Wyatt’s House 2 sold for $3.817 million, giving them a $367,000 profit.
“That’s amazing,” Chantel and Wyatt say.
“I feel like I need to do a nervous poop already,” Tayla says, in another example of her trademarked unfiltered honesty.
Upon entering, she exclaims, “Wait, I get to hug you?” as Scotty goes in for a hug. After jumping on him in week 1 and blowing out his knees, it sounds like Tayla may have been banned from further Scotty Cam hugs.
Tayla and Rick are both looking very nervous, but excited.
Scotty Cam immediately clocks their auctioneer, saying, “He looks 12!”
“Sorry, 12-and-a-half. Does he know what he’s doing?” Scotty joked.
Ryan King, at 22, is the youngest auctioneer in The Block history . And he’s immediately incredibly impressive.
The most impressive thing is that the boy auctioneer even impresses Block regulars Danny Wallis and Frank Valentic by trading quips – first responding to Danny’s usual maths shenanigans with a handily deployed tongue twister, and then joking about Frank’s “muscular thighs”.
Courtney and Sev won The Block 2026 , after House 4 sold for $4.72 million, making a $1.27 million profit. They also bag the $100,000 winners’ prize and the prize pool worth $500,000
Such massive congratulations – they created a beautiful house , and as the bidding showed, people want to live in it.
Patrick Lenton Patrick Lenton is a journalist and author living in Melbourne. He is the Lifestyle Reporter at Domain.
Courtney and Sev win The Block 2026 as all 5 houses sell in triumphant finale
Courtney and Sev have been crowned The Block 2026 winners after a dramatic finale. Here's how much they made, the auction results and where the other teams finished.
The Block 2026: Chantel and Wyatt respond to their ‘villain edit’
After a season of blow-ups, stolen plants, producer clashes and zero room reveal wins, Chantel and Wyatt have opened up about being cast as The Block’s villains, and why they wouldn’t change a thing.
Were Courtney and Sev the 'worthy winners' of The Block 2026?
Courtney and Sev’s victory could be the ultimate vindication for The Block judges, with the couple who won the most room reveals going on to win the series, and the only team to win none finishing last.
The information on this website is intended to be of a general nature only and doesn't consider your objectives, financial situation or needs.
