Finding somewhere to live in Ho Chi Minh City

What the market looks like

The rental stock splits three ways: modern towers with management companies and facilities, serviced apartments aimed squarely at foreign residents, and converted houses and shophouses let room by room or floor by floor. Towers and serviced apartments handle registration as a matter of routine; the informal end often does not. Rents are commonly advertised in US dollars and paid in dong at the day's rate, which is worth pinning down in the contract.

• Management fee (phí quản lý) is charged per square metre per month in towers and is usually on top of rent.
• Serviced apartments bundle cleaning, utilities and often a registration service into one figure.
• Agents are paid by the landlord; a commission asked of you is a second charge on the same deal.
• Agree in the contract whether rent is fixed in dong or converted from dollars, and at whose rate.

Registration is the thing to verify first

Every foreigner staying in Vietnam must have their address declared to the local police, and the obligation sits with whoever provides the accommodation. Since Vietnam retired the paper household registration book, residence data is held electronically, and declarations are increasingly filed online. What has not changed is that a landlord who is unwilling or unable to make the declaration leaves you without the confirmation that visa extensions, work permits and residence cards ask for.

• Ask directly: does the building register foreign tenants, and will I get confirmation?
• Registration is repeated each time you change address, and after some trips abroad.
• A tenant asked to pay extra for registration is being charged for the landlord's legal obligation.
• Keep every confirmation; you will produce them at immigration.

The contract and the deposit

Leases are usually six or twelve months with one month's deposit and rent paid monthly or quarterly in advance. Contracts are often bilingual, and where the Vietnamese and English versions differ the Vietnamese one governs, so read it or have it read. If your employer is paying or reimbursing the rent, the company will need a proper invoice from the landlord, and many private landlords will only issue one if the price is grossed up — settle that before you sign, not at the first reimbursement.

• One month's deposit is standard; two is a sign the landlord has been burned before.
• Bilingual contract: check the Vietnamese text or have it checked.
• Company-paid rent needs a red invoice (hóa đơn đỏ); agree who bears the tax on it.
• Photograph the flat and get an inventory signed — deposit deductions are the usual dispute.

Utilities and the electricity tariff

Electricity in Vietnam is billed on a rising block tariff, and the residential and business rates differ substantially. Landlords who hold the meter sometimes charge the higher rate or a flat marked-up figure per unit. Water and management fees are usually straightforward; air conditioning in this climate is what makes the electricity bill worth arguing about.

• Ask for the per-unit rate in writing and whether the meter reading appears on the bill.
• Internet from Viettel, FPT or VNPT is fast, cheap and installed within days.
• Management fees are per square metre and rise with the quality of the facilities.

In order

1. 1Confirm the building is licensed to host foreigners and will register you.
2. 2View in person; listing photographs here are optimistic more often than not.
3. 3Read the Vietnamese text of the contract, or have someone read it.
4. 4Agree the exchange-rate mechanism if the rent is quoted in dollars.
5. 5Agree the electricity rate per unit in writing.
6. 6Settle the invoice question if your employer is paying the rent.
7. 7Photograph everything and sign an inventory before handing over the deposit.
8. 8Collect the temporary residence confirmation once you have moved in.