Can’t afford to buy your own home? Silly you! Owning a property is actually as simple as giving up avocado toast and fancy coffee. Haven't you heard?
That’s according to Australian millionaire Tim Gurner, a luxury property developer in Melbourne, who has antagonised young people everywhere by suggesting their housing woes are caused by millennials' spending habits, rather than a combination of stagnant wages and spiralling house prices in many cities.
“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 in an interview with 60 Minutes Australia. “We’re at a point now where the expectations of younger people are very, very high.”
He continued: “We are coming into a new reality where … a lot of people won’t own a house in their lifetime. That is just the reality.”
Tim Gurner believes our housing crisis will be resolved when young Aussies inherit the 'incredible wealth' from the Baby Boomers. #60Mins pic.twitter.com/iET9sus8qW
— 60 Minutes Australia (@60Mins) May 15, 2017
When asked if he believes young people will never own their own homes: “Absolutely, when you’re spending $40 a day on smashed avocados and coffees and not working. Of course.”
He then went on to suggest young people aren't working hard enough by offering his own story as a point of comparison. “When I had my first business when I was 19, I was in the gym at 6am in the morning, and I finished at 10.30 at night, and I did it seven days a week, and I did it until I could afford my first home. There was no discussions around, could I go out for breakfast, could I go out for dinner. I just worked.”
Unsurprisingly, Gurner’s comments went down like a lead balloon on social media.
The average UK house price is £234,795, or in millionaire speak, 39,132 lots of yummy avocado toast at £6 a pop. pic.twitter.com/EEq9HxoBr0
— Shelter (@Shelter) May 16, 2017
@TIME Dear Idiot,
— Dr. M to the J, Ph.D (@DrM2theJ) May 15, 2017
Generational trends like those quoted here aren't due to the popularity of avocado toast.
Sincerely,
Home-Owning Millennial pic.twitter.com/VaCsoPjqWF
Help balance my budget! I need to buy a house :(
— Charlie Maas (@Live_Maas_) May 15, 2017
Internet: 100$
Utilities: 60$
Avocado toast: 150K$
Groceries: 200$ https://t.co/s57kMsfCTH
Alright, I did the math. If I stopped eating avocado toast every day, I would be able to afford a bad house in Los Angeles in 642 years. pic.twitter.com/nqhiqnQ07E
— Kaleb Horton (@kalebhorton) May 15, 2017
Confession: I bought a house & ate avocado toast.
— Andrew Thaler (@DrAndrewThaler) May 16, 2017
Don't take financial advice from some boomer goomer who can't figure out how to do both
Gurner isn't the first person to suggest young people's avocado toast habit was ruining their chance of buying a home. Writing in The Australian Magazine last year, columnist Bernard Salt said young "hipsters" were spending too much money dining out.
“I have seen young people order smashed avocado with crumbled feta on five-grain toasted bread at $22 a pop and more. I can afford to eat this for lunch because I am middle aged and have raised my family. But how can young people afford to eat like this? ," he wrote.
"Shouldn't they be economising by eating at home? How often are they eating out? Twenty-two dollars several times a week could go towards a deposit on a house."
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