Ask Adrian Portelli and he’ll likely tell you no – with a few colourful words thrown in for good measure. Over the weekend, the Australian entrepreneur sold one of the three Hampton East houses he purchased on The Block for $1,055,000 less than he paid for it just five months ago.
Known as “Lambo Guy” after the humble choice of vehicle he pulled up to The Block’s auctions in, Portelli purchased the five-bedroom house for $4.3 million last November at the Charming Street auctions. On the weekend, he sold it for $3,245,000 – fully furnished and never slept in.
Spending a total of $12,400,000 at the auction, Portelli is a prime example of how ostentatious bidding by cashed up investors at televised auctions can push prices beyond what the next buyer is willing to pay upon resale.
Having joined Australia’s young billionaires club this year, it’s seemingly a hit he can take after setting a reserve price of just $1 and reportedly yelling out, “I’ll leave the coffee machine in there!” mid auction when bidding on the property hit the $3M mark.
But while it’s the worst resale result of a Block property so far, it’s by no means the only resale incurring a loss. Sales data shows that a quarter of the properties renovated on The Block that have since changed owners were resold for a loss.
With 19 seasons and 907 episodes under its jackhammer, 85 properties have been renovated and sold on Nine’s long running and hugely popular renovation reality series, The Block. 27 of those homes have been resold at least once, with six selling for below what the original buyer paid and one breaking even.
Half of the eight first resales since season 10 went for a loss, with season 12 contestants Julia and Sasha’s apartment selling in May 2022 for $1.98M, $590,000 less the $2.57M price tag the first buyer paid for it in 2016.
In mid-2021, a South Yarra apartment renovated on the 11th season of The Block sold for $1.55M after being purchased for $1.67M in late 2015, marking a $120,000 value decrease over five and a half years. Meanwhile, Mater Lotteries resold ‘Blockheads’ Kingi and Caro’s neighbouring apartment in the same block of South Yarra apartments at a $13,000 loss only eight months after acquiring it.
At the beginning of October 2022, the luxe three-bedroom townhouse built by former AFL player Darren Jolly and his wife Deanne that won the 2015 “triple threat” season of The Block sold for $2.2M, marking a $90,000 decline in value since its $2.29M sale seven years before.
And going back over twenty years ago to 2003, buyers of two Bondi apartments from the very first season of The Block both lost around $100K upon resale in 2005. Data suggests that most Block buyers have a penchant for playing hot potato with houses, holding on to properties for much shorter a period than the national average of 11 years and instead selling after between two to five years. Or five months, if you drive a Lambo.
