The Block townhouse at 26a Newell St, renovated by Quinn and Ben Alexandre.
The Block townhouse at 26a Newell St, renovated by Quinn and Ben Alexandre.
Owners of the lowest-yielding house in The Block reality show hope to overtake the winning price in a quick resale.
The three-bedroom townhouse at 26a Newell St in Auckland's Pt Chevalier is on the market for a negotiated sale which agents are confident will fetch close to $1.6 million — if not more.
"We'll probably sell it for the high $1.5s, early $1.6s (million)," a member of the Professionals agency told the Weekend Herald yesterday.
That compares with $1.335m which Queen St jeweller David Mansor and his wife Maree paid at auction in November for the house, renovated by TV3 show contestants Quinn and Ben Alexandre, and $1.552m commanded by Corban and Alex Walls' winning property at 28 Newell St.
The Professionals agent, who did not want to be named, said the $217,000 price difference was unwarranted and illustrated challenges in offering four houses for auction at the same time.
"That's obviously what the problem is when you offer four houses which are almost identical, with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, one living room — all facing north."
If his team manages to make up the difference, that would represent a profit of at least $10,000 a week since the auction, minus the cost of some interior repainting and other finishing work undertaken by the Mansors.
Quinn and Ben Alexandre. Photo / Michael Craig
His firm had sold a similar-sized townhouse on a smaller site in 2013 a few streets away for almost $1.6m.
"Newell St would be a superior location, and that was a year and a half ago, so it would be worth substantially more now."
The discrepancy at The Block auction prompted the Walls to gift $30,000 from their winnings of more than $300,000 to the Alexandres, who would otherwise have netted $10,000 for their renovation efforts.
Mr Mansor said he and his wife had bought the Alexandres' property with an idea of living there while renovating their Herne Bay home, but had since decided to put their plans on hold.
But although the Newell St property was "a little bit small for us", he said the couple had liked it better than the winning house, which was on a smaller 355sqm section than their 480sqm lot.
"We've got a development company and we know what it costs to build in that area," Mr Mansor said.
Although the winning house had a few "extras", such as solar panels and central heating, its master bedroom was very small with practically no wardrobe space "so we thought we got the better house".
"Our property is the most elevated and you get a little peek at the water (Waitemata Harbour) and there's a park (Meola Reserve) there as well from the back."
The Professionals agent said two of the other competition homes were already occupied by their owners, Pt Chev locals. He understood owners of the third home intended moving in soon.
