BEIRUT — “Our dream was to have a nice home so we could decorate the way we wanted,” Nour, not her real name, told Al-Monitor. “So we went searching for houses back in 2014.” A few blocks from where Nour sat at a Beirut cafe, protests over Lebanon's economic collapse and corruption among the country's ruling elite continued into their second month. 

Nour’s husband Ahmed, also a pseudonym, told Al-Monitor, “I was working in Saudi Arabia at the time, and between my salary and hers, we could afford something nice.” The young couple entered the housing market just after a real estate boom, when the sector constituted more than 40% of all banking loans in Lebanon. 

Ahmed and Nour, both architects, wanted to find the perfect house in which to start their family. They found it in the Metn district, outside Beirut, with a price tag of $500,000. Between their savings and some help from their parents, they put together the down payment of $200,000, and for the remaining $300,000, they turned to a Lebanese bank.

The bank told the couple that the loan would be at zero interest, and, “If there is a change in the interest, it will be $2 or $3, maximum $4, a month.” Nour would later remark, “We didn’t understand back then what was happening.”