Tips for searching accommodation.

To new coming expats or foreigners to Vietnam!

1. BEWARE OF REAL ESTATE AGENTS!

Please beware of ads from real estate agents! They use fake pictures & give an inflated price for properties they are advertising here
Normally they will raise the price higher so that the owner will have more each month & will be happy to pay them commission. It's fine. However, when they aim to you foreigners, they raise to a really unreasonable price which youwill laugh at them & pass to another ad or will blame them scammers later once you move in.

How to know if it's agent or not? They have many ads for many properties with the same phone number/email. They even use same pictures for different properties. Simply have a look through ads or google for their email/phone number.

How to know if price is inflated or not? Join some sites for leasing properties like travelmob, airbnb, holiday letting,... Because they charge the properties' owners, they reduce a lot of real estate's ads there. Then you can have some idea about real estate pricing here in VN, which differs from region (e.g HN vs. HCM), location (e.g D1 vs D7), area (e.g expats community areas vs. local community areas v.s back packers area which will differ from safety, convenient facilities, infrastructure,...)

2. Narrow down your search:

- Locate your desired place to stay depends on purposes of your stay here (e.g near your work place?)
- There are 3 areas in HCMC where most expats prefer to stay: D1 because it's center of the city, most of your offices will be here, D7 because it's one of largest expats community here (more Asian than Westerners), D2 (more Westerners). However, back to the first point, choose a place near your work since traffic in HCM is a pain in the ass.
I don't know much about Hanoi.
Hue, Danang & other provinces are nice, easy to travel, so you don't have to worry much about traffic.

3. Some basic knowledge

Mostly about Ho Chi Minh:
- Infrastructure here is terrible. In rain season, some of area will be in flood after rain. They are: part of D10, D2, small part of D1 & D7.
- There 2 districts: D7 & D2 where you can find most of things an expat need instead of importing anything from your countries.
- There're websites, e.g Expat.coms & forums, groups e.g expats groups on facebook, mothers & kids in ho chi minh city,... where you can join and ask for information from expats & locals. However, don't waste your time reading all of threads (esp. on FB) there cause some of them have nothing to do but trolling people.
- Apartment vs. house
@ Apartment:
- Safer. However in many building, security guards are puppets only. And it's not safer than staying in a house at all.
- More likely newer & nicer furniture (but not decent & tasteful). Try to choose new buildings cause quality of buildings here retrogress quickly.
- Most buildings have attached super markets, swimming pools, gyms,...
- Cost: rental, bills, maintenance fee, parking fee. When real estate agents say "swimming pool, gym,..." it means there those facilities in the building but does not always mean they are free, verify with them before you choose.
@ House:
- If you unluckily chose a house in bad area, you may see your house empty one night after going out. How to choose safe area? Consult your Vietnamese friends or expats here. They have specific communities for most known areas, e.g "Expats in Ho Chi Minh".
- Most of houses with the price you LIKE are old, boring & vapid Viet fashioned style decoration. Houses with nice decoration is of course more expensive. Then you can sure share it with your house mates if you want to stay in a much better, comfortable house.
- Facilities: you can choose to go to local markets nearby to explore this world or you can choose to eat out or go to super market once a week (then choose big fridge). You can also choose to register to a gym or swimming pool near your work place then go home, instead of paying for those that attached to your accommodation.
- Cost: rental, bills. In case you want swimming pool or garden, you have to maintain it. Or price is included those cost & will be raised.

* In some cases, I met expats who will stay here for long choose to decor their empty rented houses. It's worthy for spending a little more time & money (which you can get back more than half later or even more when you move back to your countries) to choose furniture yourselves & make a place your home. Try to ask for a house/apartment with some basic like a/c, hot water attached already to reduce your cost!

4. Friends, friends, friends! They will help. Ask them for references, experience, introduction

This is for expat-blog admins: would you please have rules apply for real estate agents?
For example:
- If  you wanna post here, you have to discount for our members.
- Use real pictures.
- Register your business, so that people want to appraise or complain will have clue to do. It benefits your new members a lot.

These above base on my own knowledge. Please correct any if I'm wrong! I'm glad if someone from other cities, provinces can help by repling with your opinions about your regions! Thanks!