The communities secretary, Sajid Javid, has lambasted baby boomers who believe young people could afford a home if they cut back on nights out and avocados, saying such critics were out of touch with a broken housing system.

Javid warned that without urgent action to make homes more affordable, an entire generation could becomes rootless, and resentful of both capitalism and politicians.

His speech in Bristol came shortly after Theresa May visited a social housing estate in north London, as part of a concerted government push on the issue ahead of next week’s budget.

Javid had tough words for “baby boomers who have long since paid off their own mortgage” who believed there was no need to build more homes, saying they were “living in a different world”.

Such people argue that “affordability is only a problem for millennials that spend too much on nights out and smashed avocados,” Javid said, adding: “It’s nonsense. They’re not facing up to the reality of modern daily life and have no understanding of the modern market.”

With the average house price now eight times the average income, and the mean age of a first-time buyer hitting 32, vast numbers of people were forced to remain living with their parents, he said.

Avo on toast: not to blame for the housing crisis. Photograph: Sarka Babicka/Getty Images

“Where once it would have taken an average couple three years to save for a deposit it will now take a quarter of a century. Assuming, of course, they can afford to save at all,” Javid said.



“And last year, the average first-time buyer in London needed a deposit of more than £90,000. That’s a lot of avocados.”

The chance of owning a house was now often governed by people’s ability to “make a withdrawal from the bank of mum and dad”, Javid said, risking the creation of a generation that mistrusted politicians and “becomes resentful of capitalism and capitalists”.

Stable homes were, he added, “engines of social progress” that anchored people to a community and let children grow up with stability.

There had been speculation Javid would use the speech to announce a housebuilding policy. However, nothing emerged, with the expectation that any new measures are being held back for the budget.

On Wednesday, Javid’s department announced that housing associations would be reclassified as private sector organisations, allowing them to borrow more easily to build new homes.

The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, dismissed this plan as little more than an accountancy trick. “Nothing they’ve said today recognises the scale of the problem or brings forward the scale of the resources that we need,” he said in answer to a question following a speech in London.

Speaking on her housing visit, May said she welcomed new figures showing more than 217,000 new homes were created in England last year, up from just under 190,000 the year before, but said “there’s more we can do”.

“The government is clear, we want more people to have the security of a roof over their head, their own home for themselves and their family,” she said. “What I want to see though is, we know there are lots of planning permissions out there, I want to see the houses being built.”