This week, we looked at the coliving places in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), and we made a list of all of the options available in the city. Actually, it’s surprising to see that there are only four options currently available, and really only one option available to foreigners moving to the city.
The list
Here is the list of coliving places in Ho Chi Minh City:
Aura Coliving
Coworking with coliving in District 4
“The key difference between Aura Co-living and other types of residences is that Aura members can access the convenient Aura co-working space. There are many workshops, soft-skill classes, dance, yoga and fitness classes held everyday to help Aura members improve their knowledge and lead healthier lives.”
Diamond Coliving
Small coliving building in Binh Thanh District. Providing accommodation in bunk beds (in a hostel fashion more than the usual residential coliving spaces), mainly focused on local customers.
ToBee
Coliving building located in District 11, also providing accomodation in bunk beds (like hostels), and with a clear focus on locals.
U-Living Saigon
Coliving building in district 2, with a mix of single rooms and shared rooms (yes, also with bunk beds).
In addition, there are a few serviced apartments which have started to market themselves as coliving places. The Penthouse Saigon, a modern-looking apartment building in District 7, is among them.
Hard place, even before COVID
Even before COVID19, it looks like it was challenging to run coliving operations in Ho Chi Minh City.
- Globetrottr waved goodbye about a year ago with a post on their Facebook page
- OneZone, claiming to be the first coliving place in Vietnam, is not reachable any longer and does not have any updates on its Facebook since a year ago.
- Spiced, a coworking space in District 2, which used to offer coliving accommodations told us that they “currently stopped offering coliving bedrooms on-site” as we were writing this blog post.
Conclusion
For a young and vibrant city, a business capital and “thedarling of multinationals and a favoured venue for foreign direct investment” (that’s how The Economist calls it), we expected that Saigon would have a few more coliving options. It looks like a place in Southeast Asia ideal for coliving–young and growing expat community, urban, with some friction as a foreigner to find an accommodation, and increasing cost of real estate. Hopefully, we will see more coliving places coming up soon (final tip: here is a good source of updates on coliving in Vietnam: https://colivingspace.vn/).
