In America, the moment a new car is driven off the lot the value depreciates. Regardless of how many miles are on the car, if sold, it will always be a used car. In Vietnam, this is not the case. Cars, like memorabilia, often go up in value here. Yesterday one of my students told me that his father bought a Lexus SUV last year for $100,000 (this is with the 90% VAT tax for importing cars). The same car, one year later, is now worth $140,000!!!! Can you imagine buying a car in the US and having it go up in value $40,000!
I'm assuming this is the case because the people here can't get cars into the country fast enough. With the booming economy, many wealthy people are becoming very wealthy people and have nothing to spend their money on other than cars.
Meanwhile I'm just curious if my bicycle will go up in value when I sell it next year!
