Rumours are swirling that this year’s The Block: Tree Change winners Omar and Oz used a dummy bidder to drive their reserve up and win the show, after the pair took home a record breaking sum and the biggest take home win across The Block’s 18 seasons.
Along with their winners’ prize money of $100,000 and an over reserve pay day of almost $1.6m, their total winnings ended at $1,686,666.66.
Despite being slightly different sizes and having a vast array of features, each home on this season of The Block was given a $4.08m reserve.
WATCH NOW: The Block Reserves Are In. Article continues after video
Omar said that whilst all the blockheads being given the same reserve price was a shock, it made sense given all the contestants went over budget.
He also noted on the Fitzy and Wippa show that whilst a reserve price of $4m seemed steep for the Gippsland area, the houses were ”obviously worth it”.
”I think people might be a little misunderstood about what all of that [people not wanting to spend $4m in the Gippsland area] means,” Omar told Fitzy.
”Yeah, there’s land that costs close to one and a half million on each block but it also costs The Block almost $5m to build it. So they are six and a half million dollar properties. And the reason why no one spent more than $4m in this area, because there’s no properties worth six and a half million dollars so ….”.
Oz chimed in, ”There’s a lot of investors that will see this as an amazing opportunity. I mean, the depreciation list on each of these houses was upwards of $250,000 sooo..you’re paying top dollar to write off a lot of tax”.
”I don’t have the money that these guys do but I’m assuming Danny Wallace spending $20m and pretty much getting it back as a tax write off is a massive thing for him. We’re nowhere near as wealthy and as smart as him, but for him to go out and buy these houses they’re obviously worth it.”
Adrian Portelli made some high bids on Omar and Oz’s house.
(Image: Nine)Speaking on why they thought their house took the winning bid, a far cry from the $0 Dylan and Jenny, and Ankur and Sharon took home after their houses failed to sell at auction, the pair denied bringing in mutual friend Adrian Portelli as a registered bidder to drive up the bids on their property, telling Fitzy that those conspiracy claims ”couldn’t be further from the truth”.
”We asked so many people to come through and see the house. We actually reached out to a mutual friend and they kind of suggested that he might be interested and he wanted to come have a look at the house. And when he did come he absolutely loved it,” Omar said.
The winners said they also had another buyer – Frank – that was willing to ”push up” the bid to $4.8m, that is, until Danny came in and ”everyone got out of the race”.
”When you have two – we had three to start off with – Titans that are very, very wealthy and super successful businessmen and they want the house. I mean, that’s just what happens in auctions. All you need is two people bidding against each other. And we’re just very grateful… we had no idea Danny Wallace was going to be bidding at auction and to see him and to see how bad he wanted was just an awesome feeling.”
Scotty can’t believe the high bids!
(Image: Nine)Show host Scott Cam further diffused rumours of dummy bidding, telling the radio hosts that Adrian was a real bidder who was ”keen” on the house but pulled out after the bids went ”too high”.
”If the boys organised a dummy bidder to push that [the reserve] up to $5m, well that’s a strategy isn’t it?,” Scott said.
”And it’s an auction. And of course, if Danny had stopped then he [Adrian], would have had to buy the house. So that’s not a dummy bidder, that’s a bidder.”
Co host Shelley Craft further shut down rumours that the boys bidder wasn’t a ”legitimate buyer”.
”I don’t know if you’ve got mates that are willing to chump up a million bucks for you, but I certainly don’t,” Shelley told 9Entertainment.
”He [Adrian] wanted the home and he really did take it to battle [but] Danny came out on top. It was a battle of the titans for our first auction and an extraordinary result for the boys.”
Omar and Oz have said they did not ask Adrian to place dummy bids. Adrian has also denied (via his Instagram story) the claims he was a dummy bidder.
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