Celebrity auctioneer Damien Cooley has reignited the decade-old "smashed avocado" debate, telling young Australians they spend too much on dining out and entertainment instead of saving for a first home deposit. Speaking at the Australian Financial Review Property Summit, he suggested first home buyers should consider more affordable regional areas, such as Maitland in the Hunter Valley, rather than fixating on expensive suburbs, and praised savings arrangements where parents match a child's deposit contributions.

His remarks echo demographer Bernard Salt's 2016 column, which blamed young people's café spending for housing unaffordability and became a lasting flashpoint in generational tensions over the property market. New Real Estate Institute of Australia data released the same week showed first-home buyer loan commitments rose 11 per cent in the June quarter to 30,129, making up 36.3 per cent of owner-occupier commitments, with an average loan of $610,063. REIA president Jacob Caine welcomed the rise but cautioned that broader affordability pressures remain, urging that housing and tax policy changes be weighed against their effects on rental supply and investor confidence.