The red-hot favourite team of Josh Barker and Elyse Knowles has won The Block after their home sold for $3.067 million at auction.
The hefty sale price was $447,000 over the $2.62 million reserve price and together with the $100,000 prize money for winning the entire series, their winnings were more than half a million dollars.
Chatting to TV WEEK after the auctions, Josh says the win was “really good”.
“We’re just coming to terms with it now and soaking it all in,” Josh, 28, says.
Elyse, 24, added it had been a big day.
“We’re very grateful for everything that has happened to us,” she says. “It’s been a life-changing experience.”
The couple were in total celebration mode after Aussie comedian and radio host Dave Hughes purchased their stunning property.
Although it was an experience that might never have happened.
Carpenter Josh reveals he and model Elyse had considered pulling out of appearing on the reality series just two days prior to filming began.
“There were some reasons that we don’t need to go in to, but we nearly pulled out,” Josh says.
Elyse added: “We could have been looking at the auction going, ‘man, that could have been us’.”
Josh and Elyse are winners of The Block 2017!
Josh and Elyse took home $547,000.
Yet they decided to go ahead with the series, with a great result at the end.
However the couple added there were mixed emotions that other teams hadn’t made as much prize money as they had.
Jason and Sarah made a $387,000 profit, Ronnie and Georgia made $161,000, while Sticks and Wombat got a $130,000 profit and Clint and Hannah walked away with $95,000.
“It’s pretty hard to celebrate,” Elyse admits.
Josh added: “There’s been a lot of ups and a lot of downs today and we were fortunate enough to be on the receiving end off an up.”
Now that they’ve wrapped on The Block, the couple intend to throw themselves in to the next renovating project.
“We’re going to buy another house in the next few months,” Josh says.
They’ve also got another auction to attend in a few weeks.
Their own Coburg, Melbourne home that they renovated will be up for sale.
But while they’re now off to new adventures, they won’t forget the firm friendships they’ve made.
“As you get older it’s hard to make lifelong friends that are new,” Elyse says.
“You can’t put a price on that.”
