New Zealand, particularly vulnerable to a housing crash, tightens its belt as rates soar

New Zealand's reserve bank delivered its largest rate hike in history on Wednesday, piling pressure on the country's homeowners

Rosie Smyth and Richard Larsen, along with their toddler daughter, had spent years looking for an affordable home in Lyttelton, a small port town at the edge of Christchurch where Smyth grew up.

They were hunting in the midst of New Zealand's housing affordability crisis, when prices rose to nearly nine times the average income. The market had a frenetic quality - every month seemed to bring a new rise, and with it the feeling, Smyth says, that if you didn't get in now, prices could permanently dance out of reach.