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.
