Self-avowed "passionate feminist" Kirstie Allsopp has urged young women to get a flat, a boyfriend, and have babies before embarking on a career.

The woman who fronts Location, Location, Location with Phil Spencer has told the Telegraph that if she had a daughter, her advice would be: "Darling, do you know what? Don't go to university. Start work straight after school, stay at home, save up your deposit – I'll help you, let's get you into a flat. And then we can find you a nice boyfriend and you can have a baby by the time you're 27."

Allsopp explains that this advice is based on the biological clock, although she does not use that phrase.

"Women are being let down by the system. We should speak honestly and frankly about fertility and the fact it falls off a cliff when you're 35. We should talk openly about university and whether going when you're young, when we live so much longer, is really the way forward. At the moment, women have 15 years to go to university, get their career on track, try and buy a home, and have a baby. That is a hell of a lot to ask someone. As a passionate feminist, I feel we have not been honest enough with women about this issue."

Allsopp says fertility is the one thing that cannot change.

"Some of the greatest pain that I have seen among friends is the struggle to have a child. It wasn't all people who couldn't start early enough because they hadn't met the right person," she said.

"But there is a huge inequality, which is that women have this time pressure that men don't have. And I think if you're a man of 25 and you're with a woman of 25, and you really love her, then you have a responsibility to say: 'Let's do it now.' I was lucky with Ben that he absolutely wanted more children immediately and he was very committed to that."

Ben Andersen is Allsopp's partner, 10 years her senior and divorced from his wife, with whom he had two sons. They are not married as Allsopp is dubious about marriage. Asked whether she wants to get married, she replied: "No, not now. I think we probably will end up getting married, as it is the world's greatest tax dodge, but I have just been to too many weddings and seen too many women lose the plot … I have many friends who are divorced. I've been to family weddings that haven't been much fun."

Allsopp concedes that it may be unrealistic to put children before career, but argues that having them early will allow couples to concentrate on careers and education afterwards.

"We have all this time at the end. You can do your career afterwards. We have to readjust. And men can have fun after they have kids. If everyone started having children when they were 20, they'd be free as a bird by the time they were 45. But how many 45-year-olds do you know who are bogged down?

"I don't want the next generation of women to go through the heartache that my generation has. At the moment we are changing the natural order of things, with grandparents being much older and everyone squeezed in the middle. Don't think 'my youth should be longer'. Don't go to university because it's an 'experience'. No, it's where you're supposed to learn something! Do it when you're 50!"

As responses poured in on Twitter, Allsopp tweeted: I am NOT questioning anyone's choices, all I'm saying is women must have this debate & include young men in it, nature is not a feminist.