What happens when The Block houses don't sell on auction day?
Auction day on The Block Daylesford has ended with mixed results, with three houses selling and two houses passed in before they met the reserve price of $2.99 million, but for those that sit on the market – what happens next?
While the big winners on the day were Britt and Taz with House 3 selling for $3.41 million, netting the couple $420,000 over reserve plus the $100,000 winners prize, Emma and Ben’s House 1 ,and Han and Can’s House 2, failed to sell under the hammer and were passed in.
House 1 and House 2 have since returned to the market and will be sold via a private sale campaign.
Every contestant cited the $2.99 million reserve price as the reason why buyer interest was so lukewarm and the reason why some auctions flatlined.
This isn’t the first time in The Block’s long history that houses haven’t sold on auction day, in some instances properties never met the reserve and were never on the market.
This year, however, when bidding looked sluggish and the potential to earn prize money was in fear of evaporating, the contestants were quipped with a game plan: the vendor bid.
The strategy was used by auctioneers to safeguard the contestants from walking away with $0 prize money in their pockets.
In Victoria, where the auctions were held, vendor bids are permitted and can only be made by the auctioneer on behalf of the vendor and must stated when in play.
Vendor bids are used when the vendor is not satisfied with the most the recent bid.
In The Block Daylesford, House 1, House 4 and House 5 all included a vendor bid in their auction day game plan, after the velocity of Britt and Taz’s auction failed to spread to the day’s remaining auctions.
The first home that was passed in on the day was Emma and Ben’s House 1. After bidding began to stall and slowly crept towards the $2.99 million reserve, a vendor bid of $3.1 million was called.
“When we paused the auction, we knew we were very close to the reserve,” says Emma and Ben’s agent Aaron Hill of Ray White Sunbury.
“I’ve done this a long time, so it was about three years ago where [the houses] sold 10 or 20 over…we didn’t want to do that to Ben and Emma.”
Sonny and Alicia followed suit and kicked off their auction with a vendor bid of $3.05 million – the brazen game play paid off, and ultimately netted the couple $120,000 over the reserve.
However, when this strategy was used by Han and Can, with an opening vendor bid of $3.1 million the room fell silent and no follow up bids were placed, ultimately leading to their house being passed in.
The Block rules state that once a house hits its reserve its ‘on the market’ and will sell to the highest bidder.
This means if the hammer falls and a contestant’s house is hovering even $1 over their reserve – it will sell – and they might end up with some loose change after 12 months of hard work.
The worst instance of this happening was in The Block Glasshouse (Season 9, 2014) when Michael and Carlene in House 1 and Darren and Deanne in House 5 sale price trickled a mere $10,000 past their reserve.
More recently in 2022, The Block: Tree Change saw fan favourites Tom and Sarah-Jane take home only $20,000.99. In the same season, three of the five houses passed in: Rachel and Ryan, Ankur and Sharon, and Dylan and Jenny.
But was selling offscreen worth the wait?
Rachel and Ryan sold via negotiations on auction day and made around $169,000 profit, while Ankur and Sharon’s house sold around a week later and netted the pair $170,000.
Dylan and Jenny’s house languished on the market from November and eventually sold via private sale in February for $180,000 less than the reserve. The pair walked away empty handed.
In comparison, Leah and Ash’s house in Hampton East was passed in at auction in November 2023 and sat idle on the market until February 2024 – scoring the couple $155,000. In the same season, Kristy and Brett’s house sold on auction night, skidding along reserve by $65,000 – the lowest amount any team won.
In Daylesford’s property market most properties trade via private sale, and it is highly unusual for five homes to go under the hammer in the same day.
“I don’t think that five houses have ever been sold [at auction] in one single day [in Daylesford]… and as it turns out it still hasn’t,” said The Block co-creator Julian Cress.
Domain data for the ABS SA3 region Creswick – Daylesford – Ballan reveals the average days of market for property to sell in the region sits at 170 days, as of September 2025.
Cress has no doubts the final two houses will sell.
“I’m confident because I know that these are beautiful homes, they’ve been really well built and they’re really in a setting in a wonderful town,” he said.
Similarly, Han and Can were optimistic post auction and hopeful a buyer is around the corner.
“I think the land plus the house is like $7 million, so $3 million is a bargain for what it is, someone will love it as much as we do and it will sell in time,” said Can.
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