We are looking for a second car at the moment. It shouldn’t be too hard to find a simple used car here, right? They import 10,000 cars a year for a population of 250,000, this should be easy, right? Well, finding a car is relatively easy, but finding a car which is in decent shape for a reasonable price is a monumental task. It is an island so the market is isolates and distorted by metropolitan French arriving with their newly increased salary of 1.8 times what they made in France and being willing to pay exorbitant prices. People sell 8 year old cars here with over 100,000 km for more than ½ their original asking price. I was under the impression that a car loses anywhere between 15 to 30% of it’s value in the first year. So how does it manage to then keep that price over the next seven years… honestly I have no idea.
What really distorts the market are the parking or in American terms the used car dealers. In the US the used car market is large enough that they do not determine the price, but here private sellers see the price the used car dealers sell their cars for and think they can do the same. Just trying to pay a visit to a parking is a monumental task. OK, first there is Nouméa time meaning nothing is open on Sundays. Then most places close Saturday afternoons. Oh anf forget about trying to go after work or during lunch for they close by 5:30 and are closed for 1.5 to 2 hours for lunch. In the US I Would call this a front or cover business for organized crime or money laundering. Here you call it a business!
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