Is There Any Truth in Reality TV?

Despite a cooling housing market, the market for real estate television shows seems to be getting hotter and hotter, or so says USATODAY.com anyway.

Bought & Sold, Designed to Sell, Secrets That Sell, My First Home,  Get It Sold are just some of the shows that grace the upper-end TV channels these days and of course, there's still the granddaddy of "flipper" shows, A&E's Flip This House. 

All is not well in flipper-land however. Dean Foust from Hot Property, tips us off to an investigation into Atlanta real estate investor Sam Leccima, one of a number of new teams brought in to be profiled on Flip This House after the show split from its popular season one hosts, Richard and Ginger from Trademark Properties.

Now the Trademark gang have jumped over to TLC's The Real Deal, and not only has Flip This House lost its biggest stars to a rival show, but has now had two of Leccima's 'flips' blow up in their face - as they look like they may have been complete shams.

Fox5 in Atlanta discovered that both of Leccima's so-called deals had been staged for the cameras, there were no sales, no profits, and it seems Leccima even stands accused of defrauding numerous other real estate investors as well.

You can watch both segments detailing the accusations on the Fox5's I-Team page.

I-Team Investigative Reporter Dale Russell has more about Leccima on his blog and you can also follow all the drama at the Flip This Lawsuit blog. A&E has pulled both of the episodes featuring Leccima from the air.

Technorati Tags: Flip This House, Sam Leccima, property flipping, real estate

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