Rent a flat or a house in Saigon

What a nice idea for expats who are going to Vietnam. [Moderated: Free advertising is not allowed on the forum]
Best Regards to everyone. I would love to help you
Kelly

yah, I think it's hard for a person who want to find out a place in foreign country because he don't know much about this place and don't have friend at there...So in my opinion, if you come a new country you should make some native friends and they can help you so much. I believe that many people are there , always welcome you.For example, I'm Vietnamese and I live in Sai Gon ( Ho Chi Minh city ) if any one need my help, I'm always ready to help you and be your friend.

Hi. We've been in Saigon for 6 weeks now. Finding housing was not at all difficult for us. We contacted a good local realtor and rented the fourth house they showed us. It's 4-BRM house in Binh Thanh, on the border of District 1 (2 minutes to the zoo). We pay 800 dollars per month, around 40 dollars for utilities (electric, water, cable and internet, garbage, and 35,000 VND ($1.7)/hour for the maid. Let me know if you need more info.

Here’s the break-out of the utility costs that the folks are speaking about, got the info off their website:

Electric (metered) – $23 (480,000 VND)
Water (metered) – $3.7 (75,900 VND)
Cable and internet – $13.3 (275,000 VND)
Garbage – $1 (20,000 VND)
Totals – $41 (851,000 VND)

For a four BRM house?? I need to find out who your providers are and switch over to them. Looking at those costs, myself and everybody else in Vietnam are being over charged. Big Time.  My guess it’s pro-rated between at least 3 other people you share the place with. One last item Op, you stated that the maid has to pay the bills because you aren't allowed?? Except for the cable & internet the guys come to the house and collect, you don't have to go to them.

No, we don't share our house. These are the bills we got after 1 month. I made a mistake though, which I found out today: we paid 275000 VND for the internet, and got a separate bill for the cable (80,000 VND) - that's all.

The landlord told us it's would be impossible for the foreigners to pay the bills (because of the language barrier maybe, I don't know) - that's in case you are not at home when you get the invoices, which most of the time we are not.

Christine wrote:

Finding a place to live is a priority when settling in Saigon. Your experience will be of a great help for the members who want to settle in Saigon.

Therefore, we have prepared some questions for you:

Is it hard to find a flat or a house for rent in Saigon?

How to find a home in Saigon: classifieds, real estate portals, real estate agencies?

How much is the rental for a house, an apartment?

What are the formalities or the required documents for renting an accommodation?

Which advice would you give?

Thanks in advance for participating!

It's actually not hard for foreigner to find accommodation in ho chi minh city as there are a lots of agencies who will help them to find (they do it for free because the landlord will pay the fee to agent).

The rental will be depend on which area, which location, which kind of appartment... they choose.

The formalities or the required documents for renting an accommodation will be very simple since the agent who help you to find accommodation will do all the paper work. ( it is free also).

Wish you all have a comfortable life in Vietnam.

Cheers

[Moderated]

Hi, I will be posted to HCM next year and am looking for a place. Saigon Pearl is a new development, is it a good area to consider in terms of traffic, environment, convenience.
I have a cat too, is landlord flexi in having pets in apartment?

Hi,

I am Ms Nhu Ka. I am living and working in HCM City.[Moderated: No free ad on the forum]

People who are moving to HCMC should put up at a hotel for a few days.

This will allow you to determine your housing priorities.

You are working, therefore there is travel time (at rush hours); two people are working - who is driving and who uses public transport.

Shopping: proximity to supermarkets, how many times do you grocery shop a week.

Once you have defined your criteria and, maybe, even decided on buildings it is time to investigate. Visit your proposed accommodation at rush hours, in the evening and late at night.

How about flooding? TWENTY PER CENT of HCMC floods in a heavy storm, even more if the river tide is high. Does your parking flood, does your ground floor flood (sewers let the water in), does your street flood. GO ASK NEIGHBOURS!

Hai Ba Trung gets 30 centimetres of water between the river and KFC; Le Loi gets about 15 centimetres, parts of Cho Lon 80 centimetres.

As for costs (in HCMC):
Water: 10,500 cubic metre +VAT;
HTV cable: 69,000 inc VAT;
Garbage: 20,000 (free on street)
VNPT InterNet: 252,820 (premium variable IP)(inc VAT)
Electricity: Scales in blocks from 1,242/KWH (For first hundred) to 1,788/KWH for the block in excess of 200 KWH

NOTE: If your electricity bill IS NOT ON EVN PAPER your bill is illegal. In typical VN fashion, mass metered condo's are charged a commercial rate, which means you are paying too much.

You are best getting cable TV and InterNet bills in your own name; just pay EVN bills addressed to your house regardless of name. Water the same.

Nice one, Jaitch.
Just a few comments based on my short experience house hunting.

Jaitch wrote:

You are working, therefore there is travel time (at rush hours); two people are working - who is driving and who uses public transport.

Are we talking about Saigon still? driving car yourself? I would not drive myself even a car is given to me for free. Taking public transportation to work in the smelly, overcrowded buses? Bus is VERY cheap, but I would not trust taking it to work even though it stops right outside my door taking me nearly directly to work. Notice: in many places, bus service stops after around 6PM.

How about both drive the motorbikes?

Jaitch wrote:

Once you have defined your criteria and, maybe, even decided on buildings it is time to investigate. Visit your proposed accommodation at rush hours, in the evening and late at night.

Add also VERY LATE at night to see the karaoke, night noises. In places like Nguyen Huy Canh (The Manor, The Pearl), the trucks start coming in big times starting 9PM throughout the night until 6AM, and you'll hear it VERY clearly if your apt faces the highway.

Jaitch wrote:

How about flooding? TWENTY PER CENT of HCMC floods in a heavy storm, even more if the river tide is high. Does your parking flood, does your ground floor flood (sewers let the water in), does your street flood. GO ASK NEIGHBOURS!

Also, it does not need to be even heavy. Nguyen Huy Canh street floods easily 30-40cm in places after 30' rain (even though it drains off after 1 hr).

Also ask the taxi drivers who often specialize in that neighborhood about traffic and flood (assuming that you can somehow communicate with them)

saigonexperience.com wrote:

The landlord told us it's would be impossible for the foreigners to pay the bills (because of the language barrier maybe, I don't know) - that's in case you are not at home when you get the invoices, which most of the time we are not.

ALL utilities have arrangements for bill paying at BANKS. It's simple: take invoice, take money, give to teller get rubber stamp and change. Leave.

The utilities don't care if you are at home, they just leave the bill. VNPT is part of the Post Office, they mail their bills.

I wonder why your LL is so helpful? Maybe he gets commission?

Princess Meow:
The SaiGon Pearl project is mixed row/town-houses and apartment buildings built on a former swamp land area next to the SaiGon river which does double duty as a sewer. In fact, as pass the zoo to downtown you will cross a bridge over a sewer canal.

You might think no problem. The problem is low tide = exposed sediment deposits + sunshine = SMELL!

Another thing about rivers is that boats travel day and night. Large boats travel at high tide and are required by navigation rules to sound their very loud horns every minute. My office is about 4 kilometres from the river and I can hear them. SaiGon Pearl is ON the river.

Travelling from SaiGon Pearl to downtown is confusing. When you leave you have to head OUT of town, wait for a traffic light, then do a you turn into VERY heavy traffic. (On the other side of Pearl - towards out of town - are the docks where all these aforementioned noisy ships go. The traffic on your route downtown has trucks with containers)

The morning traffic jam commences about 1 kilometre from an intersection you need to get downtown. But think positively - it's 20 minutes on the smartphone.

Take a tip, BEFORE settling on a building, come here, and check it out as I detailed above.

MAKE SURE YOU GET A NAME TAG and all the shots before you come (for the moggy).

Just ran into this article. It is unfortunately in Vietnamese, and talks about the record high flooding in Saigon yesterday (up to 50 cm) just because of the high tide.

http://vnexpress.net/gl/xa-hoi/2011/11/ … -ngap-sau/

It also mentions several specific streets and areas flooded so you should be careful if you want to live in those areas.