Developer Jeff Gao: How a Double Grammar mansion and Rolls-Royce lifestyle crashed in months

Auckland developer Jeff Gao’s property empire is being swarmed and picked apart by creditors – he is on track to lose nine homes, shops or development sites in just a few months of rushed sales.

Gao’s leafy double-grammar zone mansion in Remuera is the latest domino to fall, with receivers putting the property up for a July 22 auction as Gao tells the Herald he’s been hit hard by the property market downturn.

The five-bedroom Warrington Rd home – with heated lap pool, home theatre and “exceptional scale [and] privacy” – is the most visible piece of Gao’s empire to appear in Auckland’s real estate listings.

Since May, four of Gao’s own properties have sold – a retail block at 163-167 Rodney St, Wellsford and a Sunnyvale house – while five more, owned by him or companies he controls, are on the market now.

The sell-off appears linked to Gao putting everything he owns up as collateral in recent years as many as 21 times, including the rights to a Rolls-Royce Phantom, finance records show.

Online lender Rhino Solutions was among the more recent financiers to advance Gao funds and is the one who appointed receivers to sell off his Remuera home.

Rhino, like most lenders looking to recoup funds, has used these near-identical words in the public records, stating that if necessary to recover its debts, it would take action against the developer’s “present and after-acquired personal property, land and all other property”.

An experienced developer, Gao said he’d been battered by the property market downturn but hoped to bounce back.

“I have been involved in property investment and development in New Zealand for many years, employing numerous local staff and contractors along the way and making a positive contribution to the New Zealand economy,” he said.

“Like many others in the industry, I am currently navigating the challenges arising from the downturn in the property market. My focus remains on responsibly managing through this cycle while positioning for the next phase of market recovery.”

The sell-off opens a window into a world of non-bank financiers, where loans often come with higher interest rates.

Property records show Gao had spent more than a decade building and trading property across Auckland through 13 companies – involved in dozens of homes, sections and developments, from Massey to the North Shore.

For years the banks backed him: property records show BNZ, ANZ and Westpac all lent against properties he or his companies owned.

However, the same records show a shift from around 2024.

The banks began to be replaced by second-tier financiers – and some of the refinancing on properties took place in quick succession, with mortgages swapped between lenders within weeks.

A subdivision in Karaka, South Auckland, left the following in land records.

When Gao’s company Pinecrest NZ bought lots in the subdivision in April 2025, it financed the purchase through a non-bank lender.

The records show the mortgages then churned, with a new financier every few months, until the lots passed out of Gao’s company entirely this year.

Some of those homes, on Karaka’s Tebaga Gap Rd, are on sale now – but with the proceeds due to go to a company that isn’t controlled by Gao.

Lenders registered a total of 20 claims over everything Gao owned, while another held security over his firm’s Rolls-Royce, giving them the right to force his assets to sale if needed to recover their debts.

Records only show when a security is registered, not released when a debt is paid back, meaning not all 20 claims would have been active at the same time.

Then, early this year, multiple lenders made a grab on his assets.

On one day – February 2 – two separate lenders lodged caveats over six of Gao’s properties at once, indicating they claimed a financial interest in them.

Weeks later, another financier moved on three Massey development sites that a Gao-controlled company had assembled on neighbouring properties.

Those three sites, at 418, 420 and 422 Don Buck Rd, are all zoned for business and are now being sold as two separate mortgagee sales.

Then a separate Don Buck Rd home Gao owns personally hit the market this month – a three-bedroom house being sold by receivers, where offers to buy closed on July 8. Listing agent Harcourts has not revealed whether it sold.

Ultimately, it was Rhino Solutions that moved on his Remuera home so it could be pushed to auction, property records show.

Rhino Solutions advertises online that it lends loans of up to $20,000 – charging rates between 21.9% and 29.2%, and default interest at 47.45%.

The Herald understands it lent more than that to Gao and it is listed as the second mortgage lender on his Remuera house, land records show.

Gao did not respond to questions about how much he or his companies owe.

But with Gao’s Remuera home going to auction on July 22, Adam Botterill from Waterstone Insolvency, the receivers appointed by Rhino Solutions, is hopeful creditors can get cash back.

“Fingers crossed we get a good result at the auction and manage to get as much back to pay people what they are owed,” he said.

SEE 17B WARRINGTON RD’s ONEROOF FOR SALE LISTING HERE.

SEE 418 DON BUCK RD’s ONEROOF FOR SALE LISTING HERE.

SEE 420-422 DON BUCK RD’s ONEROOF FOR SALE LISTING HERE.

SEE 424 DON BUCK RD’s ONEROOF FOR SALE LISTING HERE.

SEE 15 TEBAGA GAP RD’s ONEROOF FOR SALE LISTING HERE.