If there’s one thing everyone knows about millennials, it’s that they love avocado toast. Now one Metro Vancouver developer is using this knowledge to their advantage.
Woodbridge Homes is offering free avo toast for a year to millennials who buy a condo from their Kira Project, CTV reports. The development is located in West Coquitlam, just a five-minute walk from the SkyTrain’s Burquitlam Station. It offers one-, two- and three-bedroom units with prices starting at $399,900.
READ: Real Estate For Millennials: The (Un)Official Guide To Getting Your First Home
So what’s the catch? There is none, besides the fact that the condo must be purchased within the first weekend of sales, which is May 4 and 5.
“Our approach with Kira has always been from the get-go to provide a product at the entry level position in the market,” Suzana Goncalves, chief advisory officer at MLA Canada, told CTV. “It is something the market really needs.”
Once the condo has been purchased, the home buyer will receive a gift card to a local restaurant that has a value equivalent to one weekly order of avocado toast for a year.
This might seem like a silly marketing tactic, but Woodbridge Homes is serious about helping millennials become homeowners. On top of the avocado toast incentive, the developer is also offering a limited chance to pay just 10 per cent of the down payment.
This can be a huge help to young prospective home buyers who might not have the usual 15 to 25 per cent saved to pay upfront. A smaller down payment does have its downsides (read: larger monthly payments), however, the benefit is that homeowners can enter the market earlier and won’t have to immediately stretch their finances just to afford a home.
A Mortgage Consumer Survey found that this was the case for the majority of first-time millennial home buyers in 2018. That year, 85 per cent spent the maximum they could afford on a home, leaving them financially strained.
READ: How Long It Will Take Millennials To Save A Down Payment For A Home
Vancouver is notorious for their high house prices. In March, the benchmark price for a detached home was $1.4 million, while a condo went for $656,900, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver.
In a city where affordability is such an issue, it makes sense why Woodbridge Homes would try to appeal to first-time millennial buyers.
