Block 2025 winners revealed: High reserves cause auction chaos in Daylesford – realestate.com.au

With reserves well over $2 million above Daylesford’s average house price, there was a desperate scramble behind the scenes at The Block to ensure contestants didn’t walk away empty-handed.

While winners Britt and Taz’s home sold for $420,000 over the $2.99 ​​million reserve, the remaining teams faced an uphill battle to attract bids with a front three.

Executive producer Julian Cress and presenter Scott Cam realized the severity of the situation and urged the teams to have their auctioneers open with a seller’s offer that would prevent their homes from going under the hammer too quickly.

“Today’s conversations were a little more difficult because they were about strategy, because we could see the wheels coming off, and so I tried to reassure them that they were not about to get into a car accident where they had made zero money for their efforts, and so we came up with the strategy of starting with the supplier bid,” Cress said of giving the teams a pep talk ahead of their auctions.

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All five teams went into a tailspin after learning of their reserves on Friday.

Despite their best efforts to lobby for a reduction in the figure – in light of Daylesford homes typically selling for between $810,000 and $825,000 – Channel Nine would not budge.

Cress said he didn’t have the reserves in hand.

“I wasn’t even consulted on what I thought they should be,” he said.

“These decisions are made at a much higher level at Nine.”

It was always going to be difficult to move so many large, luxury homes into a regional area.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had five houses auctioned in one day in Daylesford,” Cress said.

“That would never have happened, and it turns out it still hasn’t happened.

“But I am confident because I know these are beautiful houses. They are really well built and in beautiful surroundings, in a beautiful city.”

Julian Cress, co-creator of The Block. Image: supplied

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It was hoped that Adrian Portelli’s absence from the 2025 auction room would pave the way for more mums and dads to have a shot at purchasing a Block property. But with reserves of $2.99 ​​million, that became a difficult task.

Despite Portelli’s no-show, Cress did not believe the conditions this year were any different or more stressful than previous years.

“Auction Day for The Block for myself and for Scott Cam, there is no other day of the year where we wake up feeling physically ill when we go to work,” he said.

“But we both do, and it’s not because we’re worried about the ratings, it’s because the ratings will be fine.

And it’s not because we’re afraid we’ll lose our job or that someone on our crew will do a bad job.

“We know it will all go very well as a TV show.

“We’re just worried and feeling sick because we’ve become so close with the participants over the months we’ve been in production that the thought of them not making any money is horrifying.”

Scott Cam on The Block in 2025. Photo: Channel 9

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Despite the mixed auction results, Cress continues to maintain that the season is a success.

“The result wasn’t that bad,” he chided.

“We have some houses that we need to sell at a level that would yield more than $100,000 in profit for the participants who played the game, and we have some that made more than half a million dollars. I think we should remain calm about this.”

While host Scott Cam acknowledged that the reserves were too high, he scoffed at the suggestion that the contestants were doomed to failure.

“They certainly weren’t fed to the sharks,” Cam said.

“Obviously because there was $3.4 million in the room on auction day [for Britt and Taz’s house].”

Cam also argued that the reserves would not have deterred potential buyers because the information was not shared with them before bidding started.

Although disappointed for Emma and Ben and Han and Can, whose properties were transferred, Cam said: “They have been given the opportunity to be rewarded for their hard work when their homes come back on the market first thing tomorrow morning.

“We have two and a half million viewers watching that show, so we have plenty of potential buyers who will be aware that there are still two homes available.”

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