When bidding on Ronnie and Georgia Caceres’s house stalled during The Block auctions, plenty of hearts sank.
At one stage, it looked like the property wasn’t even going to meet the reserve price of $2.62 million.
Yet a quick decision by the couple and host Scott Cam to pass the property in before it reached reserve ended up paying off for them.
The bold move shocked other parties in the auction room who hadn’t been expecting that course of action.
Scott told TV WEEK that Ronnie and Georgia had a clear strategy that they had discussed.
“I said if it hovers around the $2.6 million mark, which is under reserve, you’d have to pass it in immediately,” Scott, 54, says.
Scott was concerned the couple would have a similar result to what happened to Michael and Carlene on the Glasshouse season of The Block.
The Queensland couple only made $10,000 profit over reserve when their apartment was sold, and were left devastated at the result.
Having watched that season, Ronnie knew they didn’t want the same outcome and had given their agent a clear directive regarding passing the property in.
“We’ve created drama the whole season, why not continue that on auction day,” Georgia says.
Despite the stressful experience, the couple was happy with the end result.
“We’re really pleased,” Georgia says.
Buyer’s advocate Nicole Jacobs, however, was visibly agitated by the move to pass it in, as she had an interested buyer but was then locked out of negotiations.
“With normal auctions when the vendor’s reserve has not been met the property is passed in, and that’s what happened today,” Nicole tells TV WEEK.
“I think we saw the buyer depth was dwindling and so with the pass-in, it was a bit unexpected for me because I didn’t realise they were going to pass it in.”
As the highest bidder at the time the property was passed in, buyer’s advocate Frank Valentic was the only one able to negotiate with Ronnie and Georgia in an attempt to meet a sale price for his client.
However when his offer fell short and was rejected, Nicole was then able to offer a price on behalf of her client – eventually securing the home for $2.781 million.
The sale gave Ronnie and Georgia a profit of $161,000.
Nicole admitted she would usually expect the auctioneer to announce they were about to pass the property in, so she was caught off-guard when that didn’t happen.
“Maybe I should have been bidding earlier,” she says.
“But I was under strict instructions from my client and we were going to start bidding as soon as it revved up again, so I was a little bit taken aback. But in the end we were able to purchase for our client really well.”
As for their adversaries on The Block – Josh and Elyse – Ronnie and Georgia were gracious about their win.
“The best team won on the day,” Georgia says.
“Well done to them, and that’s going to really help a young couple kick-start their real estate journey, so that’s awesome.”
