Want to buy a home? Then stop forking out on $4 lattes

Want to get on the property ladder but don’t know how? Then stop forking out $4 for a latte and going on fancy foreign holidays.

That’s the advice from self-made property tycoon Tim Gurner, who says hard work, saving and not paying astronomical sums for avocado on toast are the key ingredients for getting on the property ladder.

“When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn’t buying smashed avocado for 19 bucks and four coffees at $4 each,” he told 60 Minutes in an interview. He says young people must get real about their expectations.

“I think until this generation realises that the people that own homes today worked very, very hard for it, saved every dollar, did everything they could to get up the property ladder.”

The 35-year old multi-millionaire started out owning a gym in his late teens with the help of a small inheritance and now owns GURNER, a property developer specialising in elite apartments, which has a $3.8 billion project pipeline under its belt including Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley and the plush Melbourne suburbs of Prahran and South Melbourne.

Gurner ( pictured below) is worth $473 million, according to the Australian Financial Review’s 2017 Rich List, ranking at number 157. (The full rich list comes out later this month).

Also read: Who are Australia’s richest young people?

Generation Kardashian

It’s a slow process for Gen Y to get up the ever-elusive property ladder, he admits, but it can be done.

“You might have to buy an investment property or share with Mum and Dad, you might have to buy with a friend.”

The problem is today’s Gen Y’s are too influenced by the spoilt Kardashian clan coupled with wanting to travel and eat out daily, he believes.

“They want to eat out every day, they want to travel to Europe every year. This generation is watching the Kardashians and thinking that’s normal. Thinking that owning a Bentley is normal, that owning a BMW is normal.”

Also read: The real reason young Aussies are struggling to get on the property ladder

‘Incredibly challenging’

Despite his success in the property game, Gurner admits Australia’s market is not without its challenges. In an interview with the AFR this week, he admits tightening lending rules and the much feared risk of the residential market collapsing is pushing the developer to hedge his bets by turning to commercial property.

“It’s an incredibly challenging time in the market, no question. We’ve got foreign buyer restrictions, lending restrictions and we’ve got a planning minister here [in Victoria] who is being difficult. And we’ve had 18 months of the press being negative about property,” he said.

Despite this, he is “pretty confident about the market” with demand for city apartments still rampant.

“I think there is still a massive undersupply of apartments in the inner-city and good quality apartments at that. We’ve launched a few projects in the past six months and every one of them has sold within a few days. What we are seeing is still a huge demand for quality product.”