'Real Housewives' star's brother under fire for alleged fake before and after photos of house flip

Joe Gorga, Theresa Giudice's brother, was criticized for a post on IG.

February 20, 2020, 7:19 AM

One woman has blown the roof off what appeared to be an incredible house flip project by a notable real estate developer.

The brother of "Real Housewives of New Jersey" star Theresa Guidice has been accused of posting fake before-and-after photos for his real estate business.

Joe Gorga, who frequently shares photos of home renovation projects on social media, has also promoted a real estate seminar.

In a now-deleted post on Instagram, Gorga shared a “before and after” photo of a house he said he flipped with the caption, "Look at this flip worth $1.9M. Took me 6 months to turn this around. Ripped off the roof and added to the second floor. I think I might move in."

One observant homeowner who saw the post said the "after" shot is a picture of her house, which she said was never renovated by Gorga.

"It was a new construction," Caley Svensson told ABC News. "The foundation was new. Everything about it was new. It was built from the ground up."

The house in the before photo apparently still looks exactly the same. According to Realtor.com, the home from the before photo sold a few months ago.

Svensson said when she reached out to Gorga via Instagram and asked him to take down the post of his alleged renovation, he never responded.

"It felt like he was using our house to advertise his business," she explained. "He's gotta be careful -- in 2020 you can't be making mistakes like that. You gotta be able to check your facts and everything that you put out there is true."

Joe Gorga declined to comment to ABC News, but the New York Post’s Page Six, which first reported on the story, says that Gorga now agrees the Svensson home was never flipped and says his 21 year old social media manager "made a mistake."

A source close to Gorga told ABC News that his social media manager shared the photo by mistake, but that he helped fund the construction of the Svensson's house as a private investor.

He "never spoke with the home owners directly, but worked with a group of investors on the deal," the source said.