Steve and Chantelle Win The Block

Rookies and underdogs Steve and Chantelle have taken out The Block: Fans vs Faves in a record-breaking night of auctions. The series of life changing moments experienced by each couple had me both gasping in shock and crying from happiness.

In an unbelievable finish, the honest and hardworking pair from Geelong, who had no renovating experience, stormed home in the final auction of the night to take out the top spot and the $100,000 prize as the winners of The Block Fans vs Faves.

The couple, who have had their fair share of struggles throughout the series, produced an apartment that, upon completion, brought judge Shaynna Blaze, to tears. And the bidders agreed: handing over $2,470,000 for Apartment 1 – the biggest sale price of the night and the highest price in Block history… I told you it was record-breaking!

The sale price was a staggering $636,000 over the reserve amount and, coupled with their $100,000 prize money, the likeable pair walked away with a phenomenal $736,000… tax free! It’s hard to even understand what that kind of money that is… let alone it being all yours.

It was a night of elation for all the couples, as each of them managed to collect more than half a million dollars profit for their ten weeks of hard work and personal sacrifice.

Runners-up were Alisa and Lysandra in Apartment 3. Their warehouse conversion sold for $2,375,000 – netting them a profit of $616,000 over their reserve.

In third place were the ‘Super Ks’, Kyal and Kara, in Apartment 2. Their apartment sold for $2,440,000, giving them a tidy profit of $567,250 over the reserve.

And, in the first auction of the night, Brad and Dale in Apartment 4 made a profit of $507,250 when their apartment sold for $2,310,000.

In total, all contestants earned a staggering $2,426,500 last night for turning a dilapidated shell of a building into four high-end, luxury warehouse apartments.

I was lucky enough to chat with deserving winners, Steve and Chantelle after their auction.

Dani – Guys I’m so happy for you, this is an unbelievable result and I’m sitting here with goose bumps. What an outstanding achievement.

Chantelle – Thank you Dani… thank you so much! It hasn’t sunk in… it’s an absolute fairytale. We honestly just wanted to sell because for us it was all about the experience. Getting onto The Block was already a big win for us. We just can’t even comprehend this kind of money.

D – How are you both feeling? You must be pumped.

Steveteve – We are totally pumped… it’s absolutely surreal right now. We are going to be looking at each other for ages just saying: ‘We won!’

C – When we first got that phone call from casting saying ‘so what you guys doing next week? Because you’re on The Block.’ That feeling was just, ‘What!’ we get to experience this and now it’s already done and we sold and we WON. It doesn’t make any sense at all.

D – After watching the other auctions, were you surprised that you still managed to top everyone? What were your thoughts? and how were you feeling going in?

C – Do you remember how Sophie [Dale’s wife from The Block 2012] was on your series? How she just went mute… well that’s what happened to me. I just couldn’t say anything. And Afterwards, all I could say for probably the next hour was just ‘woah’, I just couldn’t understand what was going on.
We were all just so thrilled when the boys went out with such a huge win, and then Kyal & Kara went next, and at that point I was fighting back tears because I was just so happy for those guys.
Then the twins went up, we thought, ‘jeez well ours is north facing and if they managed to get what they did [$616,000 profit], what could we get? But then on the flip side we thought ‘well people might have run out of money by now.’ We just wanted to sell. Sitting on that couch we thought all of the buyers had probably bought the place they wanted, and then it just went bang! It went straight up to $2.25m in a split second.

D – That is crazy! So you essentially made a few hundred thousand on your first bid…

S – Yep! On the first two bids we made something like $300,000.

C – Do you know what… in front of us is a New Idea article and one of the closing lines basically says that there were lots of people saying that our apartment wouldn’t even sell… Its just icing on the cake and it’s proved a lot of people wrong.

D – Explain to me what was going on during the auction; was it just going bananas in terms of bids?

C – BANANAS… Completely bananas! There were literally bids going everywhere.
The guy who bought ours was a buyer’s advocate and he was bidding on three auctions until he finally got ours.

D – Was that Frank?

C – Yep haha, good old Frank… He was pretty happy. He literally jumped on our auctioneer. He ran up and launched himself onto him and gave him a big hug.

D – So I know you guys had selected Hocking Stuart Albert Park to represent you and your property, what were they like in the lead up? Were they expecting that kind of result or were they not really giving too much away?

S – Our agents were quietly confident although a little bit nervous and apprehensive because it’s such a big deal. They had said there were at least a couple of real buyers in the mix with about ten registered to bid. I think that because of the enormity of the whole auction they were just hoping for a good result because on the last series they represented Trixie and Johnno’s apartment and ended up finishing in last place.

C – They had a lot to prove from last series, especially after the twins had said on air ‘why would Steve and Chantelle choose Hocking Stuart when they lost last year?’ but we worked with them on everything.

S – It was redemption time for them and they had the opportunity to maximize their whole advertising portfolio and now they’re the winners of The Block.

D – That’s fantastic. I think that’s how you want them to be, quietly confident but not getting your hopes up too much.

C – They were working like dogs the whole time. We knew they wanted the win and we had been working with them right from the get go. Literally the day we moved into The Block we called them and asked, ‘right what should we be looking at, which position?’ and then we consulted them on everything from there; the flooring, the study and what the market wanted.
We really did consult with them the whole way through and we felt we had a very strong game plan. We made it very clearly we wanted to be kept in the loop and help them in any way possible and they just worked so hard. They were totally on top of it. They strategized so well, even with going last in auction order, we were nervous but took their advice and well, it paid off.

D – Where were you actually watching the auction?

S – We were watching it from the boys [Brad and Dale] master bedroom. Production had moved the bed out and put our couch in the room and then Scotty was sitting next to us. He was just beside himself. It was awesome! He had the biggest smile on his face and couldn’t believe what was going on just as much we couldn’t. It was just amazing.

D – Talk me through those moments when you were waiting for your auction to begin…

C – Seriously crazy! Firstly, the girls came back from their auction and just went ‘oh… my… gosh!’ They were really pessimistic before they went in to watch their auction and didn’t have smiles on their faces.
After the result from the boys and Kyal and Kara, they felt they weren’t even going to sell. They had said to me ‘we’re not going to do well and you’re not going to do well’ and I just said to them ‘no, I don’t agree, anything can happen. You could win it, we could win it, anything can happen.’
They came back from watching their auction just so elated and in absolute shock, so our nerves just kept going up and up and up. By that stage, I was dead silent and I couldn’t even get across to them how happy I was for them. I just couldn’t even handle that excitement; I had just shut down a bit and was really starting to think about our auction.

S – To see Kyal and Kara’s excitement was incredible. They were just so over the moon saying, ‘we don’t have a mortgage to pay off anymore.’ What an experience.

C – Yeah, in the car on the way back to the hotel, I said to Kyal ‘do you understand that your only commitment now is to buy food for your dog… you don’t have to pay any rent or mortgage’ and he just burst out laughing.

D – What’s next guys? Are you going take a holiday?

C – I don’t want to take off too quickly. I want this to sink in a bit before we escape it all. We definitely want to throw a massive party with our tradies and then yeah you’re right we do want to take a holiday.

D – Are you going to renovate again?

C – I’d love to. I have a property in North Melbourne that I bought when I was 19 and it really does need work but a, I didn’t know where to start and more importantly I’ve never had the funds to be able to do it, but now, that is an option for me. I would totally be able to pay off my mortgage in its entirety.

D – That’s sensational, congratulations! And lastly, how has the experience been for you overall, has it been the greatest experience of your life?

C – Oh yes, hands down. We just wanted an experience and to push the boundaries of what people get to experience in life and we ended up with so much more than that. It’s definitely been the experience of a lifetime.

D – It really is one of a kind.
Ok well I’ll let you guys go and enjoy it but thanks so much for your time and congratulations again.

C & S – Thanks Dani, speak soon!

The Block: Fans vs Faves was one of the toughest series to date. The building in O’Grady St, Albert Park, initially had no walls, no ceilings and no floors… it was a dream series to be involved in.
Scotty Cam finished off the night appropriately with a fully clothed ‘bomb’ into the pool.

The total prize pool over the eight series of The Block now stands at a whopping $8,131,501.

Congratulations again to the couples and everyone involved in the production of The Block, it keeps getting bigger and better and we can’t wait to see what’s in store for the next series.

The Home Journal is an Interior design and Lifestyle blog by Dani Wales, fomer contestant on The Block.  Check out her blog for more inspiring articles.