If you were to buy a house, what would you look for and how much do houses cost over there? Is it more expensive than in North America? I think houses there is probably cheaper?
You'd be surprised at some areas in Vietnam being extremely expensive. Some houses in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) are on par with California houses when it comes to prices. You can get a townhouse for like $600,000-700,000. Villas are like $1-2 million and up. Apartments are still reasonable though. You can buy a 2-3 bedroom luxury apartment in a high rise for $120,000-250,000. It all depends on location. Even in Saigon there are cheap houses and apartments but you'd have to be in a district that is far from the city center like District 9. But even that district is being developed quickly.
There are also newer projects in smaller cities around HCMC like Dong Nai. A town house here is about 3 billion vnd ($130,000) without interior. It's new and clean, the roads don't flood like in some areas of HCMC. The only downside is it's not as fun as the big cities.
As for the country side, houses there are still very cheap. Foreigners usually buy land then build a house on it.
