This is the long awaited blog post on finding housing in Vietnam (requested by many readers of the classic Cost of Living in Vietnam post, and this new post is especially about the Ho Chi Minh City rental scene for expats.

As I've mentioned before, I live in an unfurnished two-storey house of about 70 square meters located in a tiny alley (I'll explain why below) which is less than a 10 minute drive from downtown District 1. For this I pay less than $200 per month including all utilities. For the past year, rent has been stable whereas the previous year it went up by $10/month.

I pay more for housing than the average single Vietnamese person pays, while paying far less per square meter than the average expat in Vietnam.

How (can I not get ripped off on housing)?

1. Have Vietnamese friends on your side, finding housing for you that they would be willing to pay for for themselves or their families. Not real estate agents who see each foreigner as a fat commission check (even when they are foreigners themselves), where the higher they can negotiate monthly rent the more money they earn. Agents are incentivized to get you into the most expensive housing you're willing to pay for. Friends want to save you money. The difference between the two methods can mean hundreds of dollars saved each month.

When you first arrive in Vietnam, consider staying in temporary housing, a guesthouse, or a hotel for three months or so, while you build a network of Vietnamese friends. Don't rush yourself into a 1-year contract.

2. "Nhà cho thuê". Memorize this Vietnamese phrase. It literally means "House for rent" and it's a sign that you won't have to pay extra for having some agent with a storefront market the house (or spam the internet). These landlords get less requests for their properties if they're relying on eyeballs on their signs alone. These are hidden gems. If you see a sign in an area (and it should be in an alley) that you'd like to check out then write down the phone number, name (the name is probably preceded by "A." or "C."), and address, then have a Vietnamese friend call for you, ask for the price, and then schedule an appointment to come check it out.

Also be on the lookout for "Phòng cho thuê" which means "Room for rent" which means you'd only be renting a single room in a house. You'll see these signs for guesthouses in the backpacker district as well. For most rooms for rent where the landlord lives in the house and is in charge of unlocking the front door, it will be inconvenient for you to come home after a late night of partying as someone will have to wake up to open the door.

Some other vocabulary:
"ở ghép" - This means a group of people are looking for someone to share a room.
"nữ" - This means the housing is for females only.
"sinh viên" - This housing is meant for university students. Any of these are probably not a good match for foreigners moving to Vietnam.

Spend time walking or leisurely bicycling through kilometer after kilometer of alleys and find as many of these as you can. Especially be willing to venture into dead-end alleys. For the same reason that you'd normally not go into them (which isn't due to any physical danger - Vietnam is generally really safe), for the people who actually live there it's a quiet place to live without the through traffic.

You can also find posters attached to light poles and other public areas although in that case you won't be able to immediately see the outside of the house.

3. Unfurnished housing. A rule of thumb is that furnished housing costs twice as much as unfurnished housing, even though the "value" you get from renting furniture from your landlord rapidly goes down as the price goes up. So at $300/month for a fully furnished room for rent, you could find a similar yet unfurnished room for rent for 3 million VND. A 4 million VND house would easily ask $400/month if furnished.

Picky about furniture? You will actually be better off buying your own and renting an unfurnished place. If you're concerned about not being certain how long you'll be here, just consider that the monthly savings could easily cover buying appliances, etc. in the 6 months your likely minimum shortest contract is for. If you do suddenly leave in 6 months you do have the option of selling your nearly new appliances. On the other hand, wait awhile before you move into your first permanent home and you might be fortunate enough to have new expat friends who decide to leave the country and give you their furniture and appliances! (One thing you quickly learn about being an expat is that we are an impermanent lot)

Oh, don't forget that you can actually affordably have custom furniture built for your home in Vietnam.

4. In general, not being too picky about having something in mind and finding something that matches it exactly. Did you willingly decide to move to Vietnam yourself? Then you should dispel any expectations of Vietnam changing itself to suit you on your arrival without having to conform in any way. If an international company sent you here to work then you might have an argument for being housed in more expensive expat housing.

Do you need to live on any given street, or really close to your work? Probably not if you can ride a motorbike.

In Vietnam, kitchens can range from spacious countertopped rooms to nothing but a sink. But a sink, anywhere with a water hookup, is the kernel of a kitchen. Any area with a sink can be turned into a kitchen with some tables and shelves. If the place is unfurnished, you can provide your own portable gas or electric stoves. Don't expect to find an oven, something most homes in this tropical climate don't have.

If you don't like how the rooms are arranged in a house, have you ever considered knocking down the walls and having the insides rebuilt to your liking? In Vietnam, this is actually an affordable option if you consider the savings compounded over more than a year. This includes adding new sinks or moving them around.

Do you need a pool in your apartment complex? If you did stay somewhere with a pool, keep in mind you would have to pay extra for it, when you could just live near a pool which you could go to when you felt like it. Despite the tropical climate, it's actually too cold to swim for many months anyways.

All that said, you should live somewhere you feel comfortable. If you have special requirements, even if they seem like normal requirements to you, it may take longer to find the right place or you may have to pay a lot more for it.
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How much does a house cost in Saigon? Apartments for rent in Ho Chi Minh City

$25-$100

At the very low end might be a tiny, thin-walled (privacy is optional in Vietnam) room for rent with no private bathroom. In District 1, this might be $100/month. Outside of D1, maybe $25/month, but in this price range it would be more common for Vietnamese to share a room. But it's very unlikely this range of housing would suit a foreigner - if you can even find it such a place on your own.

$100-$125

Next up might be a small but furnished room for rent in District 1 from $100-$125/month. This would have a tiny bathroom in the room, but probably nowhere to cook. The small dimensions would make a lot of tall Westerners feel claustrophobic.

$150-$250

The Pham Ngu Lao backpacker district in D1 is full of guesthouses for rent for foreigners at around $200/month. These are generally furnished with beds, desks, closets, air conditioning, and a private bathroom. Like a hotel, there is housekeeping service included. On the other side of Tran Hung Dao, Co Giang and Co Bac Streets are full of these. Vietnamese would find similar housing for $150.

[ Alleys outside of D1 also have many one to two-storey small houses from 3 million VND (about $150) on up (unfurnished). ]

$250-$350

Old, non-luxury highrise apartments start from about 5 million VND ($250). For example:

• - 1 bedroom apartment in D5, 10 minutes drive from downtown: 5 million
• - 2 bedroom in brand new housing in the suburban districts: 7 million.
• - 1 bedroom in an older midrise apartment complex 5 minutes from downtown: 6 million.

[ The outer districts (Tan Phu, Binh Tan, D6, D8, D12, D9) have a lot of brand new highrises being built. Meanwhile, there are very few buyers and the real estate market in Vietnam is in a deep slump. This means there is a vast oversupply of this kind of housing. ]

$400-$800

At this range you can rent a furnished four or five bedroom house for foreigners or a large serviced apartment (or what they will call "luxury apartments" here). This could be in District 1, District 2 (An Phu), District 7 (Phu My Hung), or elsewhere, and generally people (expats) go through agents to find these, although for apartments you can just walk up to an apartment building you like and there should be an agent on site so you could just cab it from highrise to highrise looking at serviced apartments.

You would also find houses for foreigners in The Ghetto (Thai Van Lung and Le Thanh Ton area of D1, which has many Japanese residents) in this range.

The bigger houses would be harder to find, but follow my instructions above.

$10000

Apparently, you can even pay this much for a crazy villa.

But anything above $1000 is outside the arena of value judgement when it comes to this blog post.

A note on online apartment finding services

While it would be really convenient if we could just use the same websites we used back home to find housing, unfortunately they don't work well here. While Craigslist does exist, it is full of a handful of real estate agents pumping their overpriced products. You can assume that anything on there is a ripoff.

Since MetVuong is no longer up, another website worth mentioning is MuaBan. It's the online presence of a popular classified ads paper published daily or weekly. You can also go buy a copy for a few thousand dong. You will see lots of listings for housing and it will give you an idea of how they're described. Get someone to translate for you. But beware: nearly all of the phone numbers are for real estate agents and not the actual landlord. They may not know which ad you're looking at when you call and they will definitely try to show you some other properties instead. They will also want to charge you for the privilege. It's rare that they will ever find a house for you to move into, but they make their money by just showing you any house.

Otherwise, for the time being, just avoid any online real estate website for foreigners.

Last week I was interviewed by Sketch Magazine, a monthly publication for Vietnam's Japanese community.  So the September issue will feature a little something of my thoughts on living in Vietnam from a foreigner or Viet Kieu perspective.

One question that came up was: How did I end up in Vietnam? And why?

This is a question that's pretty commonly asked in the expat community.  Nobody chooses where they were born but we expats all had some say in the foreign country we moved to.  I traveled around North America, Europe, Asia, and some of Latin America before deciding I wanted to live somewhere in Southeast Asia, finally settling on Ho Chi Minh City.  

When I ask others how they ended up here I get a variety of answers.  You could split them into "planned" and "accidently".  Those who ended up here accidently stayed because of: 

• a girl (often now an ex-)
• came on holiday and became addicted to cheap beer
• came for school and decided to stay (a lot of Germans, Koreans, and Australians)

Others come here due to Vietnamese blood relations, and some come specifically for the business opportunities.  And then there are the true expats, the ones who were sent here or came to work for a specific job.  Traditionally, they would get a fat expat compensation package with housing allowances (thus driving up housing costs for all) and other perks, but this is changing.

So what do those expats who didn't come here with a job in hand already do? 

1. Freelance.  With Vietnam connected to the world via internet (barely, sometimes), many of us with creative skills such as programming or writing can continue to work for clients back home.  Due to the much lower cost of living compared to Western countries, one doesn't need to work as many hours or maintain as many clients as before.

2. Find a job.  This is a bit harder since there may not be the breadth of positions available to match your specific work experience.  Having a PhD in some applied science may be worthless here.  Nobody may have heard of the university you thought was famous.  But most people I know eventually get a real job here (ignoring survivorship bias).

3. Make your own job.  This could be by starting a company, something which is within the reach of most foreigners here, whereas it would have been a highly risky use of savings back home.  Others shop their skillset around to companies who might not have had a position open if you can make them realize you are the solution they just weren't looking for.

4. Teach English.  This is what people do while they are in the process of #2 or #3.  Some people do this for years.  Teaching English in Vietnam is the easiest way to make decent money in Vietnam, assuming you're from the US, the UK, Canada, or Australia/New Zealand (but they also hire good English speakers from the Philippines, Europe, and other countries).  Teachers are in high demand and salaries are often more than you'd make back home.  Teachers don't even need high school degrees, much less college degrees.  Some English teachers find a school before coming here, but it's absolutely not necessary.  The situation is similar in neighboring countries like Cambodia and Thailand.  But with low cost of living and high salaries, Vietnam is probably one of the best countries to come and teach English in.

That covers the where, the what, and the why.  But how?  It used to be quite easy for most Westerners to stay in Vietnam on a 6-month business visa without actually having any business here.  They've since cracked down a bit but it's still possible and quite common to stay on a 3-month tourist visa renewed multiple times.  The laws on the book (not so much in practice) are always changing though, so more on that next time.