If the Farmer loves the Land and the prospective wife doesn't, does Love trump the Land?
The farmer is becoming the Prince Charming of our era, complete with trusty steed. He represents a dying breed of gents and the last of our landed gentry. He is the rugged, humble manly man in a sea of side-fringed, skinny-jeaned freaks in Sydney and other capital cities across our fair, brown land.
He is today's ideal partner for some and part of the modern fairytale for many a forlorn city-based receptionist with brilliant yellow hair, a smile to rival the Luna Park entrance and the pigmentation of a tangelo. These are the character archetypes of Farmer Wants a Wife. The partnership of said characters must encounter a significant hurdle. Prince Charming's life incorporates none of those things we female city-dwellers come to appreciate as the pillars of daily existence: hustle to work, bustle out, pretentious small bars, expensive social outings, be seen, wear the right things... So on and so forth.* The centrifugal forces for a girl who lives in a city appears trivial and fruitless to a farmer. We are the faces of hedonism. Fun, isn't it? Conversely, a farmers' day, simple and cyclical, long and labourious resembles something archaic to coast-dwellers on our populated island fringe. The farmer contestants on Farmer Wants a Wife have chosen Land over all else in their lives. They've chosen its prosperity alongside its poverty, its beauty alongside its drudgery, its relentlessness alongside its rewards. They have chosen a life path that is dramatically different to the masses in much the same way that a member of the Exclusive Brethren chooses that life. If Exclusive Brethren were perhaps a better marketed bunch and Channel 9 ran Honorable Brethren wants a Wife, would women line up for the prospect of such a dramatic, unfamiliar change in circumstance? Unlikely. It means giving up technology and society like farming does apple martinis and weekends off work. The city-country divide in Australia is such that few in the paddock have connections to the those in skyscrapers. I'd like to see arranged city-country marriages. You know, really bridge the city-country divide.
There’s a moment in every season of The Block when momentum builds, audience numbers peak and the hype around the show is palpable – particularly in the state in which the series is being filmed.
This desire occurs, in my experience, about one month before the big auction night. Which, when I pop my PR cap on, is fortunately about six months too late to become involved anyway. There is a time, pre-production, when agents can pitch to be involved in the series. Ironically, it is that very same time that most agents would shudder at the very idea. Why? Their freshest memory during pre-production is the result and ensuing publicity for the auctioneers and agencies involved in the previous series. Let me take you back to the season before last, when the hammer fell and some didn't sell: reserves were criticised and the housing bubble hysteria re-inflated. The media had a field day and by-proxy agencies and auctioneers wear some of the blame for the results ... and the mysterious real estate game remains a mystery. An agents' view of The Block is not a particularly positive one in the aftermath of a season final. Consider again the 2010 series in the exclusive enclave of Sydney's Vaucluse. One property in four recouped costs. The post-event commentary and scruting of the show's auction results and the wider implcation for the market is not confined to property journalists and property pages. Property matters to everyone... in theory. We all fit into a category: renters, owners, sellers, investers - we all need 'shelter'. But The Block manages to thrust the property market into the homes of millions that perhaps otherwise aren't monitoring the expert insights day-to-day. Despite the attention it brings the industry, the publicity for the agencies and auctioneers immediately post-event is seldom positive. And this season, the 2011 season in Richmond Victoria, has been no different. Three of the four properties failed to make it over their reserve prices and in the days following the show everyone has had their two-cents worth on The Block results: talk back radio, newspapers, even rival television networks. Most of it stems from the disappointing lack of sales but perhaps the most damaging publicity is the news that all four agencies have been “raided” by Consumer Affairs Victoria post-auction. Underquoting allegations are not ideal. Media reports more broadly have been so-so with criticism of the reserves, the auctioneers, the crowd etc. The Twittersphere has been even less kind. The Block series has an opportunity to demystify the current market and the auction process. It’s an opportunity to deliver some transparency to the real estate industry, to show how reserves are decided and how buyers are identified and engaged. Does it achieve this? Not really. Does it aspire to? Probably not. To me, as someone somewhat removed from the intricacies of real estate, I thought the reserve prices looked ill-informed, the buyers looked to be outnumbered by glittered-up hangers-on and the competitors were audibly despondent when the gavel fell. This doesn't at all represent the many evening in-room auctions I have attended.
This wasn't a good advertisement for real estate investments, even in a climate of disconcerting instability in other investment options.
The production company purportedly spent an average of $950K per property. Another $100K was then spent on renovations. And the outcome? Well contestant Katrina summed it up in one sullen sentence when her property passed in: “waste of time really, wasn’t it?”
With this in mind, four houses have been purchased in Dorcas Street, South Melbourne. Casting is occurring now for the next season.
I wonder what the many South Melbourne based agents are considering as they weigh up their opportunity to bid for inclusion in the show. Is it better to be part of this juggernaut and chance the outcome? How much control do we have over reserves and the time the reserves are set? How will the market move during the twelve months between the original property purchase and the series airing? How much marketing time do we have? How much access to potential buyers do we have prior to the auction?
It's so easy to get swept up in The Block frenzy mid-season and to want to put your money where your mouth is as an auctioneer or an agency and enjoy the publicity. And how long lived is the publicity impact? Can you name the four agencies involved in the 2010 Sydney season?
Is the hype worth the risk of being the face of a mediocre result in an unnatural real estate atmosphere? And is the potential for a positive outcome going to serve your business name long enough to justify the risk?
