May 16, 2017
Sherrie Castellano /With Food & Love
Avocado toast with cilantro lime cashew cream
For millennials looking to buy a house in the near future, listen up – your avocado toast obsession is putting your dreams in jeopardy, at least according to one millionaire.
Australian real estate mogul Tim Gurner, 35, touted the advice on a recent interview on the Australian "60 Minutes."
"When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn't buying smashed avocados for $19 and four coffees at $4 each," Gurner said, according to 9 News Australia.
Gurner, who is worth about $340 million, didn't stop at eating habits.
“We're at a point now where the expectations of younger people are very, very high," he said. "They want to eat out every day, they want travel to Europe every year."
Gurner went on to say that the people who have homes now "worked very, very hard" to earn them and added that they "saved every dollar, did everything they could to get up the property ladder."
While the advice may have been geared toward Australia's younger residents, the message hit millennials in the U.S. hard. The real estate mogul caught a lot of heat for his comments on social media Tuesday, after many U.S. media publications like the Huffington Post and Time picked up the story.
If I'd just skip those weekly $22 avocado toast brunches in 50 years I could afford a 10% down payment on a 500k one bedroom condo.
— K Schroeds (@kbschroedy) May 16, 2017
I was gonna put a down payment on a house last year but then I spent $44,000 on avocado toast https://t.co/SvSEisua71
— Jennifer Albright (@albrightjc) May 15, 2017
@TIME I don't drink coffee or eat avocado toast. I'll take one house please.
— Lockdawg16 (@DDes1616) May 15, 2017
They are buying homes, however. Millennials made up 45 percent of those taking out purchase loans in January, according to CNN, up 3 percentage points from the year before.
The generation was also searching for homes the most on Realtor.com, a researcher for the company told the publication.
Philadelphia's also a pretty good spot to be if you fall between the ages of 19 and 35.
Trulia, a real estate website, ranked the City of Brotherly Love as the No. 1 spot to be a millennial. A report from the site said that younger Philadelphians are more likely to own homes and make more money than those in the 33-to-55 age range, according to Curbed Philly.
Another report from Nestpick, a housing website based in Berlin, also selected Philly as the ninth-best city in the U.S. in which to be a millennial in a recent report.
So while buying avocado toast here and there may add up, one thing's clear – it sure would take a lot of it to save up for a down payment.
