Mike,
don't have to tell you why everything that isn't produced natively is expensive in NZ -- shipping costs. When I was there the advertised prices for new cars knocked me on my a**.Yes- the huge disparity is reduced, but new cars are still relatively expensive. That's true of all small markets, I guess- there are fewer than 4 million people in NZ.
Other stuff is a bargain, though. If you sell your house in any sizeable city in the US, you could come here and purchase a mansion anywhere except Auckland.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
