TORONTO (EON) – Millennials would be more likely to afford a house if they stopped eating avocado toast, according to an Australian millionaire.
Real estate mogul Tim Gurner told the Australian 60 Minutes.
“When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn’t buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each,” he said. “We’re at a point now where the expectations of younger people are very, very high. They want to eat out every day; they want travel to Europe every year.
“The people that own homes today worked very, very hard for it,” he said, adding that they “saved every dollar, did everything they could to get up the property investment ladder.”
Only 32% of home owners were first-time buyers in 2016.
he average price of a single avocado in March was $1.25, according to the Hass Avocado Board. One Twitter user, Nora Biette-Timmons, calculated that a serving of avocado toast cost her about $1.65 — or one-477,896th the average price of a home in Brooklyn. Compare that with New York City brunch prices, where you are likely to spend $10 to $20 for ornately dressed toast, and the savings are clear.
Gurner’s criticisms of young people’s spending habits did not go over well on social media.
#avocadotoast 5 minutes to bankruptcy pic.twitter.com/1nsm75TFe8
— #FreeJulianAssange Anti-War🌹 (@JodyCoyote12) May 16, 2017
https://twitter.com/aNateScott/status/864170202698727424
https://twitter.com/Live_Maas_/status/864173555533193216
Millienal "The Graduate":
"I have just two words for you. Are you listening?"
"Yes, sir."
"Avocado Toast."— Ty Austin (@TyLAustin) May 16, 2017
All I want is to own a home, eat delicious avocado toast, and have a POTUS that doesn't share state secrets. Clearly I'm asking WAY too much
— alyse (@aconnpowers) May 16, 2017
I don’t see why he needed to drag Kurt Vonnegut into this, Kurt is a friend of the working man. Also, no shelf has ever groaned under the weight of Vonnegut books, there’s like twelve of them.
It’s probably good advice. When you are trying to save money for a home, pack your lunch and brew your coffee at home. It’s one of the simple changes you can make. No one says you can’t eat avocado toast, just make it yourself.
Yes, buy cheap and crappy food so that some other rich person will criticize you for your bad food choices. Money must be magic because it seems to make you smart in everything.
The news: Housing prices are out of control! The cost of education is skyrocketing! Employers are demanding higher levels of education for entry level positions! Basic living expenses are through the roof and wages have been stagnant for years! Hydro hydro hydro!
Also the news: Young people can’t afford a house because of toast.
Baby boomers with a minimal college diploma, a good job, and a nice house that has tripled in value since they bought it: Yes that is true about the toast and you are all very entitled as well.
As a millennial living in a house recently purchased by her spouse (also a millennial), and who doesn’t eat avocado, here’s my 2 cents. Millennials in a 40k+ per year career CAN afford a mortgage in cheaper areas (but certainly not Vancouver). The trouble is saving for the down payment while trying to pay a mortgage payment equivalent in rent. Seriously. We went from a 2 bedroom basement apartment to a 4 bedroom detached house and our mortgage payment is about $14 more than our monthly rent was. Ever since installing a heat pump system, our utilities are actually lower. But if we didn’t have help on the down payment, we’d still be dreaming of someday.