I am moving to Hoang Dieu in District 4 - Any Recommendations?

I guess you didn't practice the magic rule: Visit a place 4 times weekdays and twice weekends. Rush hours plus around 22.00H and 01.00H; weekends Staurday evenings and Sunday morning 03.00.

You will learn tha rush hours are impossible with taxi's fighting it out with motorcyclists to get on to Khanh Hoa and then to Q7 - Phu My Hung. And vice versa.

The wedding palace on the ground floor of a building facing Tam Vinh seems to out do some karaoke for making noise both the loudest and the longest, way past the 02.00H curfew.

You should hope you don't actually face Hang Dieu as it is on the motorcycle racing circuit that is active 02.00-04.00H on Friday, Saturday and Sunday early mornings. You get to view hundreds of bikes as they meaninglessly circle around.

If you travel by bus you will end up at Ben Thanh bus terminal. If you drive the quickest exit is to use the rear exit on your building, cut across to Khanh Hoa, turn right, to to the road that runs parallel to the sewage canal until you reach Cau Calmette and to get on it you do an illegal U-turn. Don't worry, I've done it for years.

Crime is high in the area: bag snatching,theft especially theft of motorcycles - even during daylight hours. It's always had a bad rep because of the docks even amongst the Vietnamese.

Why do I know about Q4? We had an office there for a long time and I decided to move when I caught a guy trying to break-in, he wouldn't stop even though he knew I was there. I poked him with a rod and he fell 20+ feet. It's also filthy dirty there, too.

Jaitch,

I never knew that dist 4 is a dangerous place to move in.  We're planning to move in an apartment there but since I've read the info. from you, we'll have a change of plan. I remember, my friend told me that a lot of crimes happened there.  Maybe we'll just stick around dist 1 or 3.
Thanks..


SAppire

I think D4 is not really good ^^ I agree with Sappire that there have a lot of criminal and there's so noisy too. What's about D7? It will be better in security for you (cuz many foreign people live there)


By the way, nice to meet you and welcome to HCMC <3

Thanks for the advise. We put down a 1.5 million dong deposit to secure room but haven't paid anything more. I think maybe we won't move there now if it is too dangerous. I don't want to feel unsafe

From the description, I guess you meant the H3 building which is an upper-middle range apt building popular among the Vietnamese.

I agree with all what Jaitch wrote.
Just one thing, don't overdo the U turn thing on Calmette. Police sometime stand on the top of the bridge to catch the u-turners. Best thing is to drive about 50 m further, THEN do a u-turn .

You won't find a lot of foreigners living in that building. A few Japanese and a handful of Westerners. Somewhat popular among the VK because of its affordability and proximity to the D1 district.
What it means is that you'll find the Vietnamese lifestyle, whatever it means: noisy (and nosy) neighbors, smelly corridors,..

The isolation of the building is typical Vietnamese so that you will hear all the noise from outside (very clearly), even if you live on the top floor.

On the positive side:

It is quite safe to live in the H3 with security around the clock, even though there is no security check. They know everyone living there so outside thieves wouldn't pass them. Vinasun taxis available every morning right outside your door. 5-10min to H1. Bus stations across the street with frequent departures to Ben Thanh market. No flood.

Vinatex supermarket is 200m away, with another major supermarket 2 km away. Plenty of good, small, cheap eateries. All services close by at your convenience. Across the bridge from Pham Ngu Lao, the backpacker area.

Concerning safety outside, if you hold yourself on the main roads during the day, you should be ok, but do not go out too late in the small side roads.

In short, convenience Vietnamese style.

We have called our rental agent and cancelled moving into the apartment! Thankyou for the advise, by the sounds of it we have made the right choice.