Stop blaming Gen Z for buying avocados

Please stop blaming young people for not being able to save enough to buy a house. 

Once again, as figures showing inflation is persistently high, and bank base rates are at levels not seen since April 10 2008 - when most Gen Z were still at primary school - the question of affordability arises. 

Rents are rising, if you'll pardon the pun, through the roof, while house prices have reached stratospheric levels in some regions, despite some recent cooling off in the housing market. 

The house-price-to-income ratio has changed significantly over the past 40 years. 

And once again, fingers are being pointed at young people's inability to save. "Stop buying coffee and avocados and you'll be able to save up", is a standard comment on Twitter. 

It's a lazy argument.

At £1.60 for a pack of two at Ocado, and assuming the Gen Zer is so fond of the fruit that they buy a pack a day, this would work out at £584 a (non-leap) year. 

Multiply this by 10 years and you get the princely sum of £5,840, which still isn't anywhere near enough to put down for a deposit on the average house price.

According to the Office for National Statistics, the average house price reached £285,000 in March 2023 and current estimates now put it between £286,000 to £287,000. 

Those of us past 40 may well say saving is vital, and it's important to put in the hard graft so that we can buy. 

We use our own experiences of slaving and saving to buy our first properties (however many years ago) as a needle to the younger generations.

"See? We did it! We didn't have take-outs or go on nice holidays or buy clothes online, and we were able to buy a property."

It's almost as if we believe (because surely the facts state otherwise) that our situations back whenever are exactly the same as someone else's situation today.

But as many mortgage advisers will tell you, affordability today is a whole different ball game.

Even if someone swore off avocados and fancy coffee for 20 years, they'd still struggle to meet the required deposits, pay the necessary fees and get anything near liveable in without doing a whole lot of work to the property.

And while fixer-uppers are fine for some young people who have DIY and creative skills, and the time and the talent to work on such projects, the majority of young people are actually working hard in their jobs and, often, side-hustles, just to be able to get onto (and stay on) that housing ladder in the first place. 

Moreover, as mortgage advisers state, the house price to income ratio has changed significantly over the past 40 years. 

For example, the House Buyer Bureau looked at how the value of a home and the average earnings has changed every decade since the 1970s.

The research showed:

• The average house price throughout the 1970s sat at just £9,277, the equivalent of £68,493 today after adjusting for inflation. 
• Although the average home may have been significantly more affordable when compared to the current market, the average earnings was also far lower at £2,265 or £16,723 after adjusting for inflation. 
• As a result, the average home during the 70s required 4.1 times income.

Fast-forward to today:

• The average house price has hit £286,489, 318 per cent higher than the average seen throughout the 70s.
• While the average earnings has also increased to £32,432, this marks just a 94 per cent increase in earnings. 
• As a result, the average homebuyer today requires 8.8 times income to cover the cost of a home, with this income to house price ratio more than doubling since the 1970s (+4.7). 

Now I'm not saying that it's not important to save. It is.

It's also important to encourage financial education from an early age so people understand the power of compound interest to help their savings grow.

But while there are clear economic disparities in a market that is woefully unsupported by government housing policy, it is unhelpful to mock young people for TikToking and buying avocados and lattes.

Maybe you enjoyed having no fun at all for your early 20s in order to buy a property in your late 20s. Good for you. 

Other young people want to enjoy being young while they can. Goodness forbid they prove that old adage wrong: "Youth is wasted on the young."

Instead of criticism, can we please find more constructive ways to help and encourage Gen Z in forming good savings habits, balancing their budgets, understanding the basics of taxation and compounding and protecting their income?

You know, they'll be wanting more in-depth, tailored advice eventually and they will be looking for someone who has helped support them over the years, rather than mocked them for buying avocados.