MY WORLD OF TRUTH

If you’re under 35, you’re a millennial. Recent culinary trends suggest that, while reading this, you might have an overpriced latte in one hand, and a fancy piece of toast smothered with avocadoes in the other. And some suggest that you’d rather waste your money on an Instagrammable breakfast than make sensible investments like buying a house.

Well, so says conventional grumpy wisdom, most recently articulated by Australian tycoon Tim Gurner, who made international headlines this month for blasting young home buyers for their spending habits.    

The 35-year-old property developer told the Australian edition of 60 Minutes that when he was saving for his first home, he “wasn't buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each”.

He generated a flurry of debate, but also an interesting question: roughly how many pieces of avocado toast would it actually take to afford a home? We looked at 10 cities around the world, crunched the numbers and found out. Scroll to the bottom for our methodology.

All figures are in US dollars. Click/pinch to enlarge.

We took the average cost for avocado toast in a handful of cafes in each city, and looked at how many you’d need to forego to afford a 20% deposit on a home. House prices are based the average price for a 90sq m apartment outside the city centre, reported by users of cost-of-living website Numbeo.