This year’s season of reality renovation TV show The Block is almost at the finish line, but potential buyers of the five homes could find other luxurious homes nearby for a similar budget or less.
Homes from the show are for sale with a $3.6 million to $3.9 million price guide, but the contestants trying to sell will face competition from other vendors within the same suburb of Mount Eliza and across the wider Mornington Peninsula.
With the housing market in a downturn, questions remain over whether The Block homes will all sell on auction day. The Block airs on Nine, owner of this masthead.
On last year’s season of the show, two houses failed to find a buyer at auction. They sold months later at a discount, and one settled on Thursday for $2.15 million to a corporate entity of which serial Block bidder Danny Wallis is the director. That price is $840,000 less than its auction reserve.
McEwing Partners’ Quentin McEwing is selling a number of properties on the Mornington Peninsula, and is also selling Chantel and Wyatt’s home at 3 Mackillop Place on The Block.
He’s also selling a five-bedroom home a minute’s drive away, at 112 Old Mornington Road, Mount Eliza with a price guide of $3.2 million to $3.5 million.
The home is set on a 3553-square-metre block and has a tennis court and a swimming pool.
“I am competing against myself,” McEwing joked. “This property has a pool and tennis pavilion and land you could subdivide. Dollar for dollar it’s offering a great buy for families.”
In a strong market, properties like Old Mornington Road would sell for at least $4 million. But in the weaker market vendors were being more realistic about prices, McEwing said.
While there had been interest in The Block houses, he admitted it would be a tough market to sell in.
“I think we’ve all got our challenges in terms of buyer depth,” McEwing said. “Lots of people would like to be a buyer, but they don’t have the [financial] depth to do it.”
Even so, The Block homes were also offering great value – with the land worth about $1.8 million and build costs of about $3 million.
“It would be an over $5 million replacement. It is a ripper buy,” McEwing said.
Mount Eliza’s median house price was $1.64 million in the June quarter on Domain data, rising 3.8 per cent over a year and bucking Melbourne’s downturn.
However, agents say there are few buyers at the $3 million-plus price bracket, as interest rate rises and the cost-of-living squeeze budgets and change plans.
Buyers have also been looking at nearby Mount Martha and Mornington as prices fall.
A six-bedroom property at 8 Birdwood Avenue is up for sale in Mornington, with a $3,495,000 to $3,844,500 guide.
The property has ocean views, a swimming pool and an al fresco terrace. It includes a two-bedroom unit built into the roofline, and comes with an option to buy a beach box.
Belle Property’s Mark Logue said the property had been chasing north of $4 million, but the price changed with the market.
“Sub-$1 million the market is pretty active and buoyant,” Logie said. “North of that buyers have a lot more choice and options. It’s pretty tough.”
Vendors were becoming more accustomed to the current market, and were more willing to meet buyer expectations than a few months ago.
“The vendors understand it’s a tough market and all of the confidence that has been eroded from the market, has eroded price,” he said.
A couple of suburbs south in Safety Beach, a four-bedroom house at 2 Sovereign Point is on the market for $3.3 million to $3.6 million.
The waterfront house in Martha Cove comes with its own boat berth and a swimming pool.
“A house like 2 Sovereign Point is more likely to be something a buyer would have as a holiday home,” Marshall White Mornington Peninsula’s Brad Pearce said.
Many properties were transacting off-market as prices softened, with buyers in the $3 million plus price range looking for homes that don’t need a renovation.
“A lot of buyers have car collections, and they want somewhere for their cars or boats or jet-skis - something for the toys,” Pearce said. “So that really is a huge focus for them.”
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