Revealed: The new Block owners

A professional couple paid $1.55m for Corban and Alex Walls' winning property. Photo / Jason Oxenham

Two young couples fork out $3m for contest homes, defying Auckland housing fears

A professional couple in their late 20s splurged $1.472 million on their first home at the auction of four properties from the reality home-building TV show The Block.

The couple, from Pt Chevalier where the four renovated Newell St properties sold on Friday, were a mirror image of the four couples in the show, said a spokesman from the real estate firm Bayleys.

But unlike the contestants, who shared their painstaking efforts on the show's third season, the new owners of the four properties want to stay out of the limelight.

A professional couple, also from the area and in their late 20s-early 30s, paid $1.552 million for Corban and Alex Walls' winning property. It is their second home and they bought it to start a family.

An established Pt Chevalier couple in their 60s downsized from a big family home to pay $1.386 million for Jo and Damo Neal's home.

The fourth house, renovated by Quinn and Ben Alexandre, was bought for $1.335 million by a city retailer as an investment to rent out. He signed the paperwork in a private room before darting off after Friday night's auction, shown live on TV3.

There was a total of 20 bidders for the four homes, said the spokesman for Bayleys, which has sold all 12 properties under the hammer: Takapuna in 2012, Belmont in 2013 and Pt Chevalier this year.

The four Takapuna homes went for $800,000 to $961,000; the four in Belmont $970,000 to $1.126 million.

The reserve prices were about 40 per cent higher than last year's series, which put them in a "wholly different segment of the market".

New owners

Corban and Alex Walls
• Sale: $1.552m
• New owners: Local couple, late 20s-early 30s.

Jo and Damo Neal
• Sale: $1.386m
• New owners: Local residents in their 60s.

Maree Wright and James Steele.
• Sale: $1.472m
• New owners: Couple, 20s.

Quinn and Ben Alexandre
• Sale: $1.335m
• New owner: Investor.