Maddy and Charlotte Harry are the youngest-ever winners of Channel 9’s The Block, earning a ‘life-changing’ $1.65 million. Editor in Chief Michelle Giglio caught up with the girls at Harbord Diggers to find out how they set themselves up for success.
Imagine you are in your early twenties, and you have already bought your first home, renovated it and sold it for a profit. This is why you worked hard all those years doing babysitting and flipping burgers at McDonalds. Then Channel 9 host of The Block Scott ‘Scotty’ Cam calls you up and asks if you want to come on the show – five weeks after everyone else has started.
For Forestville sisters Maddy and Charlotte Harry, it was a dream come true. Flipping houses was, after all, what they had decided to do in life, and why they had applied to compete on a whim while on a 14-hour layover on holiday in France.
“Growing up we’d always talked about (how) cool it would be to go on a show like (The Block),” Maddy, 25, says. “We’d always had an interest in challenging ourselves and doing something a bit different. And we grew up with the desire to buy an investment property and renovate it.
“When we finished school and university, we had enough for an investment and we started renovating our own property and living in it, in essentially the same kind of conditions as The Block.”
So when Scotty called the girls on Easter Monday in April 2024, they did not hesitate to say yes – and 24 hours later arrived on Phillip Island in Victoria. It meant putting on hold their housing projects in Newcastle, where they are based, but given they work in the family’s mortgage brokerage business, it did make things easier. “We have a really supportive family and our parents were happy to pick up some of the pieces,” Maddy explains. “It was chaotic and not ideal, that’s for sure. And cost us a lot of money. But it was worth taking the risk for a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
That decision ultimately led the girls to becoming millionaires when perennial Block buyer Adrian Portelli made a knock-out bid of $3.5 million for their home, handing the girls a massive $1.55 million profit, and $100,000 for winning. But their 10-week Block adventure was no holiday, especially given the girls had to take over a home which was five weeks into construction, leaving them far behind the other contestants.
For the uninitiated, The Block has been running for 20 years on Channel 9 and is a home renovation competition between five teams who come from all around Australia. Competitors must live on site over three months and work with a builder and tradies to construct and style the inside of a home, and then go through an auction. The team which sells their home for the highest amount wins, and there are numerous challenges along the way which enable competitors to gain extra cash to decorate and furnish their home, in addition to the budget provided. Conditions are very tough for the ‘Blockheads,’ as they are known, especially in the beginning when they camp on site, until a bedroom and bathroom are built.
Add to this the fact it is a competition where the stakes are high, tempers run hot and no love is lost between 10 stressed out, alpha-type personalities on five busy building sites. Think Survivor with all the drama of Married at First Sight – and add a whole lot of hammers.
“It was the most chaotic experience of our lives,” Maddy said. “We rocked up to a reality TV set and there were so many people to meet. There was the camera crew, and hundreds of people introducing themselves to us and we’re like, ‘Who are you? What do you do?’
“I’d never felt more overwhelmed and out of my depth in my whole life!”
Maddy and Charlotte bought their first home aged just 21 and 19 (above). Then they renovated and sold it, giving them a desire to do more (below)
What followed were many ‘all-nighters,’ working around the clock to get rooms done in time, often painting walls at 3am. Contestants are required to design rooms and ensure every aspect of the build, from paint colour, light fittings and room structure, is covered. It’s their job to enlist suppliers and organise deliveries, as well as purchase all furniture. All while under pressure to meet unrealistic deadlines – like ‘finish a room in a week.’ It’s building a house on steroids.
“We were constantly chasing our tail and we felt like we were like drowning the whole way through!” Charlotte, 23, laughs.
Luckily the girls ‘know their way around a spray gun,’ and are not afraid of getting their hands dirty, with Charlotte the ‘practical, on the tools’ one, and Maddy the finances and furnishings expert.
The girls also had the extra-pressure element of having to implement the plan of the couple who left (Jesse and Paige), rather then their own design ideas which they initially could not put into action.
Most of the other competitors were 15 years older, and they did not hold back on the girls, with one team even parking a truck in their area, halting work at their site for hours, leading to tears of frustration. And while they were no novices in renovation, things did go wrong. The waterproofing of their laundry was a complete disaster!
What was the hardest part? “There were a lot of hard things,” Charlotte reflects. “The whole of Australia saw us cry a couple of times. The stress of everything, the lack of sleep. We had issues with relationships with (the other contestants) which obviously took a toll mentally on us. The combination of all of that and then having a deadline and things going wrong, things not going our way.”
Given all the pressure, I ask the girls how they kept going. “You’re in fight or flight mode and you really have no option if you break,” Maddy reflects. “You actually don’t have time to break. There are so many deadlines and so many people relying on you. You just have to get it done and you find some sort of inner strength that comes out of nowhere.”
From the start, the girls wanted to set themselves apart from the others, given all five blocks were the same size, with similar floor plans, and described as ‘four-bedroom luxury beach homes with a pool.’ It was their unique idea of creating a guest retreat with a separate entrance via a spiral staircase which really impressed the judges, who called it a ‘game changer.’
“We are super proud of that space,” states Maddy. “That is the thing that differentiated us from everyone else and added value for the buyer, because everyone’s really getting a very similar product.”
The judges were often blown away by the girls’ work, noting the age difference. “To be the youngest couple we’ve ever had on The Block, and to produce this standard – I think it’s absolutely remarkable,” said Shaynna Blaze of the first bathroom they designed.
It would seem that some competitors underestimated the young pair, at their peril. “But I think in the end they probably didn’t realize how much we wanted to win this and how much effort we put in,” Maddy reflects. Once the house was complete, they were the only contestants who stayed on an extra two months until the 10 November auction day, commuting between Newcastle, Sydney and Phillip Island, which is a two-hour drive from Melbourne, making the house ‘perfect’ and meeting every single potential buyer.
All smiles but exhausted – The Block was the ‘most chaotic experience of our lives;’
As young girls growing up in Forestville;
The ‘clay lamp’ challenge on The Block
“We were super passionate about the house and we put our hearts into it,” says Maddy.
“It was not the easiest,” Charlotte admits. “But we were like, ‘We’ve got one shot at this, we might as well put our all into it.
“I’d rather walk away with no money and know that I’ve tried everything, then walk away with no money and (think), ‘Oh, I probably should have tried a bit harder.’”
The girls owe a lot to their parents Graeme and Susie who taught them about ‘investments and how to make your money grow,’ Maddy says. “Our influence from our parents definitely set us up for a win, in our curiosity when it comes to property and business.”
Adds Charlotte: “And also working hard as well in general, sacrificing things to be able to get where you are.”
The reality is the sisters set themselves up for success very early on in life, with Charlotte just nine when she first started tutoring other children in art. After 10 years of saving through high school at Brigidine College, doing ‘any jobs that would pay us money,’ like teaching piano, retail, mortgage broking and accounting, the expert savers had enough to buy their first property in Newcastle when Charlotte was 19 and Maddy 21.
“We’d always dreamed of doing an investment property and renting it out,” recalls Charlotte. “And then when we started renovating it on the weekends and afternoons, after two years we sold it (and thought) maybe we could do another one instead of just holding it for a renter. So that’s how it began.”
Being young girls in a male dominated industry was not easy, they say, with some tradies even trying to ‘rip us off.’
“But we are strong females,” says Maddy. “You are not going to take us for a complete ride.”
“We’re knowledgeable too, we’ve done the research,” pipes up Charlotte, saying ‘You Tube, trial and error and talking to the right people’ was how they learnt to renovate. “You’re not going to get much through us.”
Maddy is adamant: “We definitely learn our lessons a 100%. I think the best way to learn is through experience and failing.”
The girls often finish their sentences for each other – and while Maddy is a twin with brother Jack, it often seems the girls are moulded at the hip, even sharing a bed with each other while on site renovating their houses. They usually spend their week days in Newcastle then come home to Forestville on the weekend, spending hours on the road together.
Do they ever get sick of each other? “Yeah, all the time!” laughs Charlotte. “We literally sleep together. We work together, we do a lot of social things together. We’re in each other’s pockets, 24/7. But we wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else.
“Right?” Charlotte asks her sister – prompting both girls to burst into laugher.
What of the lessons learnt from The Block? Maddy pauses for a moment. “I think this is hard because in terms of the renovating side, it’s not like we came out and (said) ‘Oh my goodness, now we know how to paint.’ I think the biggest lesson we learned is the power of staying true to who you are. And I think that that was a huge thing. There are not very many opportunities in life where you can be extremely tested in staying true to who you are.
“It was a constant battle for us to continue to be kind. Even though we weren’t treated very nicely for an extended amount of time, it was important to us to stick to our values. I walk away from that now and I am proud of how we acted.”
Since winning the show last November, they have done a lot of fun events like the Arias, but are mostly just trying to get back to normality after putting everything on hold for six months.
But there is really no ‘normal’ for these entrepreneurs who have ‘never worked 9 to 5,’ Charlotte says, and currently have three housing projects on the go. “I think (now) we’ll be jumping around doing what we can, taking as many opportunities as we can,” says Maddy.
What is clear is that they are incredibly passionate about inspiring their generation to ‘do hard things’ or ‘live out their dreams,’ Maddy says. “This was something that we dreamed of since we were little and it took us a long time. It was 10 years of saving and it was years of experience to equip us to be where we are today. But if you actually are serious about something and you want to work hard and you’re willing to sacrifice, you actually can achieve what you set out when you’re younger.”
Watch Season 20 of The Block on 9 Now