Earlier this year, Lauren Smith and her boyfriend started to look for their first home.
They had saved enough together for roughly a 20 per cent deposit – with 27-year-old Lauren living at home for several years after university to save cash – and began to view semi-detached homes in north Leeds for around £320,000 to £400,000 at the start of the year.
Then, Lauren, who works in PR, said “everything changed”.
Shorts
At the end of February, after the start of the war in Iran, mortgage rates began to hike.









