Help with apt. hunting

Welcome to the forum.

Whilst waiting for others to reply, check out the housing section, top of this page. This will give you an idea of rental cost.

Can your budget handle living in a hotel for a month? From everything my contacts have told me, best bargains can be negotiated face-to-face. I'm arriving in Hanoi this month, and I plan:

1. An initial 3 day hotel reservation.

2. Meeting with a business-level interpreter/guide who will help me negotiate with several hotels of MY choosing, to get the best long-term deal.

3. At that point, I can stay in a hotel month-to-month indefinitely.

However, if I were looking to rent a house or a flat, I would then "interview" at least 3 different rental agents face-to-face. Yes, there are many of them active on this site. If you spend some time getting to know expats who've previously been successful when using an agent, you can ask for referrals.

Good luck!

There are several real estate that you can communicate directly in English:

http://residences.vinhomes.vn/central-park/en/https://www.hanoifullhouse.com/apartments-for-rent.htmlhttps://housing.vn/property-city/vinhom … park-hill/

Vinhome is a big name that you can rent an appartment in different locations in Hanoi.  It would be a little bit cheaper if you have Vietnamese friend to help but if not I think it still be ok.

You can also post on Facebook. Got plenty of groups to help on this. You will probably be flooded by agents, but they will help you.
You can also visit some website like vnrental.com/ etc..
But usually all those websites belongs to 1 agency and don't have much filter functions.
You can go to websites like irent.vn (but for HCMC only). Those are multi agencies (or even owners) and have plenty of filters (Size, price, district, interactive maps, playgrounds for kids or not, etc...).

But usually you can find something very fast.

Thank you all for the valuable information.  I will definitely use it shortly.