People are outraged by Joe Gorga's recent Instagram post about his house-flipping business, but Gorga claims it was just a social media blunder.
The Real Housewives of New Jersey star has raised eyebrows from some eagle-eyed users after she shared “before” and “after” photos on Instagram of a home she claims to have renovated, including from a Park Ridge, New Jersey, woman who claims she owns the “after” home, while the “before” one is at a different address in town.
In an exclusive interview with Page Six on Monday, Kaylee Svenson said she found it “really weird” when a friend tagged her in an Instagram post by Gorga advertising her home as one she'd renovated.
“It's obviously our house,” she said. “I [Gorga] “I messaged them asking them to remove the post but got no response. I also sent them DMs but got no response.”
Page Six also confirmed via online property records that Kaley and her husband, Eric Svenson, are the owners of the home seen in the “after” photos.
Screenshot of Joe Gorga's Instagram post by Kaylee SvensonKaylee Svenson/Instagram
A now-deleted Instagram post shared on Sunday read, “Check out this remodeled property valued at $1.9 million. It took 6 months to rebuild this. We ripped out the roof and added a second floor. Ready to move in.”
Other Instagram commenters pointed out that some of the changes Gorga claims to have made would require the house to be completely demolished. “To get a 2 story colonial they would have to demolish the first floor,” one user wrote.
The home in the “before” photo, as seen in the Google Maps image, is actually at a completely different address than the “after” photo listed on Realtor.com, which says the “before” home “has recently been sold.”
Joe Gorga's “After” Home from Instagram Google Maps Joe Gorga's “Before” Home from Instagram Realtor.com
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But Gorga told Page Six exclusively that the 21-year-old social media manager “made a mistake.”
The reality TV star said she was aware that the before and after photos were not of the same house, but that she did in fact spruce up the grey home shown in the “after” photo.
“I funded the project,” he said. “I'm a private lender. I funded the deal.”
For more on Joe Gorga's house-flipping mess, listen to this episode of the Page Six podcast, “We Hear.”
Kaylee said she and her husband bought the four-bedroom home from the builder himself in December 2018, but that the house had been “totally gutted” and “rebuilt from the ground up, including a completely new basement. It's not just a 'flip'.”
“It was a new home and it made it look even worse,” Gorga said of the erroneous post, agreeing with the Svensons that the house was never “flipped.”
The “RHONJ” star added that she hasn't spoken directly with the Svensons about helping to fund the building's reconstruction, only with a group of investors.
Eric said he accepts Gorga's response that their home was mistakenly listed as a “resale property.”
Gorga has been heavily promoting her home flipping business on social media recently with the release of her new book, The Gorga Guide to Success, but the RHONJ star told us, “I'm not flipping people's houses. I buy real estate. I don't deal with homeowners…because I'm a celebrity, people overreact.”