You can rent an apartment in Da Nang before you land: view it on video, sign the lease and go straight from the airport to your own front door. There is one risk in this, and it is not the apartment but the money: paying in advance for a place that does not exist or does not look like the photos. Below is how to check the apartment, when and how to pay, what the lease has to say before you sign, and what a scam looks like so you recognise it from the first message.

When renting remotely is a good idea

When you are coming for a long stay and do not want to spend the first week on viewings, when you are travelling with children and luggage, when it is high season and the good apartments go in a day. It is a bad idea when you have not chosen an area yet and do not know how Son Tra differs from Hai Chau: read the guide to the best areas to live first, then pick an apartment. And it is a terrible idea when someone is rushing you to pay.

Step 1. Check that the apartment exists

  • Ask for video, not photos. Continuous, uncut, walking from the building entrance to the balcony, with the view from the window and a tap running in the bathroom. Photos are taken once when the building is handed over; video shows the state today.
  • Ask for the address down to the building and the floor. The building has to be on the map, and the view in the video has to match what the map shows from that side.
  • Ask for a video call with a walk-through. Five minutes in which they show you what you ask for, not what they prepared.
  • What to check on such a walk-through, point by point, is in the viewing checklist: air conditioners, water pressure, windows, mould, noise.

Step 2. Lease before money

No money before the lease. Before you sign you get the whole lease in a language you read, with the apartment's address, the term, the price, the deposit, what the price includes and the rules for returning the deposit. The owner is named as in their passport, and you have seen that passport at least in a photo. What a lease must contain and what is a trap is in our guide to the lease and deposit.

Signing remotely is normal: you sign a scan, the owner signs their copy, and at move-in you sign the originals. The move-in date and the handover of keys are in the lease, not in a chat thread.

Step 3. The deposit: how much, to whom, how

  • How much: one month's rent, two in the pricier apartments. More is a reason to ask why.
  • To whom: the owner named in the lease, or an agency with bank details and a signature. Not "the manager's personal card", not "the owner's friend", not a crypto wallet.
  • How: a bank transfer with a payment reference containing the apartment's address and the word "deposit". Cash only in person, against a receipt.
  • When: after the lease, usually a few days before move-in. The rest of the rent at move-in, once you have seen the apartment and hold the keys.

Seven signs of a scam

  1. A price well below the market for that building. Market prices by building are on our building pages; a $500 one-bedroom in The Panoma does not exist.
  2. Photos with another agency's watermark, or found by reverse image search on a sales site.
  3. "Three other people are viewing it, you need to pay a booking fee today."
  4. Refusing a video call: "the owner is abroad", "the tenants have not moved out yet", "the camera is broken".
  5. A deposit requested to the personal card or wallet of someone who is not in the lease.
  6. The lease promised "after payment", or sent in Vietnamese only with no translation.
  7. Contact only through a messenger account with no history, while the "agency" cannot be found by name.

There is a lot of this in An Thuong, where housing is rented to tourists and listings live for a day. One sign is a reason to ask questions; two are a reason to close the chat.

How it works with us

The lease is bilingual and reaches you in full before any payment. The deposit goes to the owner named in the lease. At move-in someone meets you with the keys and checks that the apartment is in the state you saw on video. The owner registers your temporary residence. What that is and why it matters is in the temporary residence guide.

All the steps in order, with timelines, are on the how to rent page. Everything available now is on the apartments for rent page.

The backup plan

Even with a good lease, book a hotel for two or three nights after landing. If something goes wrong, a delayed flight, a sick owner, an apartment not ready, you have a roof and time rather than a night at the airport with suitcases. A hotel two or three streets from your future apartment also shows you the area for real. What to do in the first days after moving in, from a SIM card to a scooter, is in our guide to the first days in Da Nang.