Job Discussion Forums

[rpayvin]

Good Day All,

After a couple months of enjoying Vietnam and it's neighbors, it is finally almost time for me to get started looking for employment in Saigon.

I would appreciate any help/comments regarding finding a place to stay for my first month here while I pound the pavement with my B.A., CELTA, and 3 years of experience. I have read that often it is almost as economical to find a guesthouse and set up an arrangement for a discount on a room if I were to stay with them for a month. My guess is that the Pham Ngu Lao area hostels will be less than eager to give me a decent rate, but that is pretty much the limit of my hotel experience here in the city so far.

I am interested in hearing about any ballpark figures I should be aiming for during this search. I have cased out a couple places and have received offers for 280-300$ a month. I think that is a little high, but please correct me if I am wrong. I am not fussy about much, do not need air conditioning, but a single room is always preferable in order to begin setting up shop in - looking for a job while based in a dorm room would be distracting to say the least.

Please feel free to PM me if any of you have any gems of wisdom, names of guesthouses, apartments that need a roommate, otherwise, any advice is appreciated.

Thank you kindly,

RPV

[mark_in_saigon]

the issue of housing is a very big subject, you can find a lot on it already on the site on a fairly recent thread. I suggest you read that for a deeper insight.

300 is not bad, I think the average teacher is paying more than that, but also getting a larger accommodation out of it.

As most of the important points are on that other thread, such as cost per sq mtr, I will just add what may not be covered that is specific to you:

I really suggest you decide what part of the city you want to work in and then rent a temporary place there. Otherwise you are going to be running around way too much while looking for work, or after starting a job. The far outlying districts may not have many jobs, but they often have a lot fewer takers for those jobs, and you can find the experience to be better away from the center. Depends on what excites you of course. There is work almost everywhere in the city, so don't start off in 1 unless you want to work in that general area, or that is my suggestion on that anyway.

I would also say it is pretty unusual to not need air con in this environment. If the building faces the sun, has concrete walls (as they all do), and minimal ventilation, it is going to be pretty uncomfortable without it.

You can get decent enough hotel rooms all over the city with wifi and air con for $300 per month.

[bobpen]

[rpayvin]

Thanks for the reply M.I.S., I have perused this forum on a very regular basis and have noted your detailed responses about the housing question in Saigon. As an aside, your advice about the aircon is good, although the heat/humidity does not bother me very much. Especially just for the first month or so until I have found a job and then I will have some idea about what district to live in, and can upgrade my accommodation if necessary.

Bobpen, does that mean that you just agree with the statement or that you have personal experience with finding cheaper rooms?

One thing that I forgot to ask: I was under the impression that tourist season is about to slow down a little in Saigon. Is this correct? If so, perhaps hotels will be more willing to negotiate down as they are less likely to be full. Maybe that's too easy and logical...

Thanks again for any advice, I wish you all a good weekend.

RPV

[mark_in_saigon]

There is a really large variety in price points. The natives spend maybe $100 a month, or even less, and pile up 4 or 5 in one room. $20 a month, there you have it. Craigslist is filled with stuff that mostly is in dreamland, lots of them are just sitting empty, waiting for a boom that may never come. $1,000, $2,000 a month, no limit to the top. I have been traveling, I may write a little about some of the crazy things I have seen lately, these large projects, everything high end of course, never see anything being built for the average incomes of this nation, many of these projects are in total suspense, or dragging along at a snail's pace. They may have 5% of the occupancy and use required to make them profitable. The place I saw yesterday was breathtaking, not so much in its extravagance (which it had), but its emptiness, I felt like I was discovering a lost city that had been preserved in a time warp or something. I have never felt anything quite like it. This is the craziest housing system I have ever seen, but there may be something crazier somewhere.

Getting back to HCMC, EVENTUALLY you may find a good deal, like in a year's worth of looking. To me that means a real house at less than 50 cents a sq mtr per month. The problem is that there is not much of a mid range housing inventory, and better housing stock is not really discounted like it should be, it just sits there empty as a store or symbol of wealth. Hotels can be had all over the city, you can get down below $250 if you try, but you start getting a bit rangy there.

I think I have written about the concept of the "boom boom" day in HCMC. The per day prices you see on the lower end hotels will note prices by the hour, by 2 hours, or the day. That is not a 24 hour day, they rarely display a full day's rate if it is that kind of a hotel. They have one, but the "day" they note is a boom boom day, a 24 hour day is a higher price.

Hotels are a bit higher than monthly rentals, and also smaller. You do get free utilities in the hotels though, and you can hop from hotel to hotel as you find a better area to work in. My experience is if you are trying to find anything much less than $300 per month you are going to start feeling like life is somewhat degraded due to the factors that come with that low end of the market. You may find it amusing though, it certainly is more interesting at that level.

There is the occasional bargain to be found in housing, so if and when you find it, these pricing parameters will be different. It just takes a long time to find, as the folks who own housing here often are content to just sit on it rather than rent it out for what the market price should be for this excess of high end housing that has been built.