I just looked up one of the Flip This House stories I had read previously.

An example of what goes on: one of the flippers on FTH, Sam Leccima, staged entire flips and, in at least one case, staged the sale of the house (the “buyers” who appeared on TV never bought the house and turned out to be Sam’s buddies).

In addition, he didn’t even own many of the homes he pretended to flip!

http://www.realitytvworld.com/news/report-former-flip-this-house-star-sam-leccima-accused-of-fraud-5286.php

Sam’s statement when confronted with the above?

“Ask anybody who works in television how a reality show is made and you’ll find that ours was a very typical approach”