Russell Cheek

Hello and welcome to this week’s instalment of my exclusive interview with 1993 Sale of the Century Grand Champion Russell Cheek, where we get down to the nitty gritty of his Big Win, where we get down to the dollars and cents… 

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RC: But I remember at the time feeling so jealous when you won. Because I came around for a Thai meal with you and Judi and I remember being so jealous because you had won $500,000 worth of gold bullion!

SH: Yeah.

RC: And it made my jackpot look a little bit puny.

SH: But when you factor in that yours was 1993, and mine was in 2005… I mean, if you consider the twelve years in between…

RC: Yeah. I guess somehow accumulating compound interest would have almost brought me up to your level there.

SH: The values would be pretty commensurate, I would have thought.

RC: Well, especially because I did the conservative thing and bought real estate. I didn’t put my money into the stock market, but I bought real estate at Bondi Beach, which has been just a boon for me every day ever since. That’s been an ongoing fountain of joy to have my own place on the top floor of a block of Bondi Beach units. So that’s an ongoing epiphany.

SH: Did you buy it outright?

RC: Almost, yeah. My jackpot was 142 grand, but I sold one of the cars and I won some cash on the ‘Cash Card’. So altogether, I think maybe I had something like $177,000. So pretty much, yeah, I bought my place outright.

SH: That’s wonderful. And I don’t want to pry, but it would be worth a lot more than that today, I’m sure?

RC: Pry, pry, pry away. Pry away. Pry away.

SH: Well, okay.

RC: It’s a license to pry.

SH: Excellent! Well, at the risk of being a tad gauche, what’s it valued at today, in 2025?

RC: Not gauche at all. And that’s a poignant question, because I’m going through a bit of a stage; I’m not getting any younger, and I’ve got a small coterie of friends who live down on the south coast of New South Wales in a very delightful spot, where my partner Karen and I go down and stay. And this once-in-a-lifetime house has come up down there, which has been on the market a long while. So I’ve actually been considering selling my apartment. This is the first time it’s come up in 32 years. But the appraisal from the agent is saying that it’s worth around $2.5 million now.

SH: Wowee.

RC: Mind you, I have done the work on it, which you’ve seen. I’ve built up into the roof space and I have a couple of extra decks up there. But it’s only the fact of having won Sale of the Century that has given me the possibility of even thinking of this possibility. It’s given me the flexibility to make some sort of decision about my future.

SH: Yeah. And what a lovely problem to have. That’s fantastic.

RC: It’s a good problem, you bet. When I won Sale of the Century and bought the property, I always thought my property will appreciate quite well, as long as there’s no huge seismic activity between the CBD of Sydney and Bondi Beach; ‘I should be here for many years to come with an appreciating property’.

SH: And sure enough, you are.

RC: Yeah!

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Like I say, a wonderful problem for Russell to have! Join us back here next week for the penultimate post in this series, when our conversation turns to the popular one-man show that Russell created, based on his Sale of the Century experience. 

Until next Tuesday!