I am building at stage 1 Willetton.
The sales Sam Ding and Thomas are very good. They always response quickly and helping customer. Unfortunately, Nicheliving is a doggy company . They cannot keep good staffs!! The turn over rate is very high. All the pre-sales and finance people left the company within 2 months time. Don't expect The Sales people will help you throughout the construction.

1. lots of delay throughout the built
Settled the land in Jan 2019. Don't expect to have the key until next year March!
I go to check property every 2 days, Nicheliving won’t do anything unless you push them! Before construction, they didn’t send me the revised floor plan unless keep asking. You will need to spend 2-3 hours sitting in front of computer writing black and white email to them. Yes!! You need to keep record of every communication!! And the client liaison person never pick up your call or call you back after voice message!

2. Payment schedule
6 stages progress payment after deposit. Nicheliving breakdown 5 stages before lockup. You have already paid 85% of all your money for Half of the work done. Then from lock up jump to completion. It took 6 months got to the lock up stage, another 9 months to do the internal renovation.

3. Get rid of their responsibility at the best they can
Before construction, I told the Sales the fridge recess has to be 1000mm. Nicheliving showed me the floor plan with the fridge recess of 1000mm and asked me not to worry. It turns out the opening of the recess is 994mm, the inside is 1000mm. The cabinet is not perpendicular to the wall! My fridge cannot fit in just because of the few mm difference. Nicheliving refuse to fix it. They quote the small wording from one of the document “ Room dimensions are to the brickwork “ . ( they have plaster board on brick wall)
To my understanding, ROOM dimension is refer to the dimensions between brick walls, but not the dimension between the brick and the cabinet! The kitchen cabinet is being put on after the plaster board. The carpenter is not able to take the measurement from the brick. The Cabinet is in the poor workmanship as it is not perpendicular to the wall.

4. Hiding information from Customer.
If you have paid the deposit with Nicheliving, congratulations! You have million opportunities to train up your English reading and writing skills. You have to pay attention to all the small wordings in all the floor plans, terms and contracts. It is always stated as “ As per drawings”, You never knows what exactly you are getting unless you keep asking! If you just expect something look like the display home, you are completely wrong! It is mentioned as “selected design” on floor plan, but it is not the design selected by you, it is selected by builder. They will just give you whatever it is cheaper and available if you don’t ask.

5. Try to rip you off in small things, Prepare for unpredicted expenses
a. I told the sales at the very beginning, we DO NOT want any carpets. OK, we will install our floor after handover. Carpets is removed on 1st floor on the floor plan drawing. Mid July 2019, we received a “stair case details” , read through the small words, last 3 steps are carpets, others are wooden steps. Nicheliving ask for over $1000 to covert the 3 steps of carpet to wooden stairs. They didn’t give me the stairs details until after 7 months the land is settled. They even cannot provide a reason why this cost was not disclosed earlier, before the land is settled! Back and forth 2 months gone still have no conclusion, I gave up and pay the money. They know you want to move in asap, they just keep delaying until you give up.

b. Uneven floor on 1st level. Our flooring guy did site inspection, he said the surface on the 1st floor is very uneven and rough! He has never seen it that bad! It is impossible to lay the hard timber floor on that rough surface. It will require extra work to prepare the floor which will cost up to thousand dollars! Nicheliving didn’t disclose the floor condition at the beginning of the construction. I have raised the flooring issue since the second storey was installed but just get ignored.
Finally they agree to pay half for floor preparation to settle the angry customer ($8xx). I think it was the end, but I was too nave. The levelling work was rough, even the slab downstairs is unlevel with humps and dips. Nicheliving said they will send someone to fix it. The worker didn’t show up for 3 times and didn’t let you know until I was there waiting for them. It ends up I have to pay extra $5xx to find another guy to fix the floor level issue .

6. Design just changed without discuss, just send you document to sign
Provided picture of external of brownish red brick before sales. Received “brick details” stating yellow cream color brick. Requested to stick with brownish red brick. But still have yellow cream color delivered on site. Causing delay in building. Company is very messy , same mistake keep repeating.

7. Worse communication ever
If you list out 6 questions in point form in email, they will reply you 2 questions only merging in 1 big paragraph. I keep chasing them to confirm the handrail design, I mentioned I want a timber one, after 4-5 emails, the handrail turn out to be a metal one. They even asked me to pay extra to fix it. Nasty and doggy.

From my observation, my guess is Nicheliving could be tight on finical. Towards the end of construction, very minor things just unfinished with no progress for weeks for different team of workers. Eg. 1 wall is not painted, 1 sink not connected, 1 shower screen not installed, 1 cupboard door is not installed etc. But others are all completed. If you are the worker, why will you just leave 1 thing behind and has to return another time to do it? Is Nicheliving delaying to pay the workers?

If you go with Nicheliving, you will take the role of site manager! keep monitoring the progress, keep sending email to rectify things. They will keep you busy and worry.