The results are in from the Domain Buyers Jury and Listing Challenge, and for the first time all season, House One are the ones the rest of the cast has to watch. Adam and Jolene have taken out the $50,000 budget boost, the cover of Domain magazine and an original Manyung Gallery painting, after more than 50 real buyers walked through all five homes on open-for-inspection night and cast an actual vote for the house they would want to live in.
| Rank | Team | Buyer Vote | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 1st | House One, Adam and Jolene | 29% | “Congratulations, house number one. Amazing effort.” |
| 🥈 2nd | House Three, Lisa and Rosco | 23% | “I loved the dark features in House Three. It’s very different to all the other houses.” |
| 🥉 3rd | House Two, Chantel and Wyatt | 20% | “My favourite was number two.” |
| 4th | House Five, Rick and Tayla | 15% | “50 grand would mean a lot to House Five, because we’re really low on budget.” |
| 5th | House Four, Courtney and Sev | 13% | “It must have been heartbreaking for them, because they thought they had the winning house, and to get the bottom score, I think that hurt their souls.” |
It is the kind of prize that changes a team’s whole trajectory this late in the season: on top of the cash and the cover, Adam and Jolene scored lunch at Polperro Winery with Domain’s Alice Stolz and finance expert Shelley Craft, where the conversation turned quickly to auction order and pricing strategy. “Best house goes first, right? You set the price for everybody else,” Adam reasoned, visibly working out what it means to be the team the other four are now pricing against. Shelley even handed over her own secret gnome necklace on the way out, a running-gag good luck charm she is apparently sick of crying about giving away.
The real story of the night, though, is who did not win. House Two and House Three were the two names real estate advocates kept bringing up as they walked buyers through, with one telling producers Two and Three were “the standout two houses” and the agent’s own personal favourite was House Two. On the night, Lisa and Rosco’s House Three edged it for second on 23 percent, just ahead of Chantel and Wyatt’s House Two on 20 percent, both popular enough to be talked about as the winner without the votes to prove it. The hardest landing belonged to Courtney and Sev in House Four, who finished bottom of the jury on just 13 percent after going into the night confident enough to be chasing the show’s all-time room win record. “It must have been heartbreaking for them, especially the girls, because they thought they had the winning house, and to get the bottom score, I think that hurt their souls,” was how one rival team described watching it happen. Rick and Tayla’s cash-strapped House Five rounded out the field on 15 percent, enough to avoid last place but well short of the boost they badly needed.
The next morning did nothing to smooth things over. Jolene noted pointedly that Lisa and Rosco were the only team to actually congratulate House One on the win, with nobody else in the group chat offering so much as a word. “That, to me, spoke volumes,” she said, and by Friday the vibe on site was less celebration and more hangover. “It feels so great waking up without 50 K,” one contestant deadpanned, before adding the line that is fast becoming this season’s catchphrase: “Number one takes it out again. Of course.”
Key Moments Today
- DRAMAReal estate advocates call House Two and House Three “the standout two houses” walking buyers through, yet both finish behind House One on the night.
- DRAMACourtney and Sev’s House Four finishes bottom of the jury on just 13 percent, after going in confident enough to chase the show’s all-time room win record.
- ARGUMENTJolene calls out the group chat silence after the win: “Lisa and Rosco were the only ones that congratulated us… that, to me, spoke volumes.”
- DRAMAAdam and Jolene’s winner’s lunch turns into an auction-order lesson: “Best house goes first, right? You set the price for everybody else.”
Attention now turns to Monday, where The Block is breaking from its usual Sunday rhythm for a double room reveal, the kids bedrooms and this week’s redo rooms, both judged on the same night. The teaser alone promises the judges turning sour on at least one team (“these guys are so stubborn, it’s ridiculous,” with a side serve of “super pissed off”), a new addition to the judging vocabulary courtesy of Darren Palmer (“they’re called ‘askholes.’ They get advice, and then it goes down the hole”), and a first glimpse of whether that secret gnome gets put to use. Until then, House Four have four days to turn a bottom-of-the-jury result into a reveal-night response.
