Australian millionaire scolds millennials for spending all their money on avocado toast

Do millennials need a different kind of green?

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published 15 May 2017

Australian millionaire Tim Gurner recently doled out some advice to wannabe homeowners that didn't sit well with the avocado lovers of the world. In an interview with 60 Minutes, Gurner suggested that millennials could buy a home if they weren't so recklessly devouring the delicacy that is avocado toast. "When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn't buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each," Gurner said.

The 35-year-old painted the youth of today as a generation with "very, very high" expectations. "They want to eat out every day, they want to travel to Europe every year," Gurner said. "The people that own homes today worked very, very hard for it, saved every dollar, did everything they could to get up the property investment ladder."

Home ownership rates among American and Australian millennials have plummeted in recent years, but that's largely been tied to heavy student debt loads, less fruitful job prospects, and a lack of affordable property options. "One of the biggest hurdles now is affordability," Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC, told Bloomberg in July 2016. "Home prices are rising so much faster than incomes, so it's hard for buyers to save for a down payment."