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Actually Agents, a popular real estate humor Instagram account created by Orange County, New York-based real estate agent Luca Alboretti, has joined forces with BAM, formerly known as Broke Agent Media, the company announced on Thursday.
Actually Agents first popped up on The Broke Agent founder Eric Simon’s radar back in 2019, the real estate media expert wrote in a post on BAM, when Alboretti DM’d him this cheeky piece of content playing off of the 2019 Netflix documentary FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened.
Alboretti had grabbed Simon’s attention — Simon posted the meme on his Instagram and watched the engagement tick up.
“My initial thoughts were, ‘Hell yeah, I hope this guy keeps sending me shit because I’ve burned through every real estate joke in the book 50 times over and I would love some fresh content,'” Simon wrote.
Over the years, Simon said, his sentiment toward Alboretti and Actually Agents vacillated from admiration to anxiety over losing followers to what he saw as his emerging competition. At one point, he and Alboretti nearly created an Instagram growth ebook for real estate agents together (Alboretti ultimately pulled out because he thought the platform was changing too quickly).
Later on, Simon ended up muting Actually Agents on Instagram, he said, “because I wanted to maintain my own voice and originality, but also because I was pissed off … I didn’t want to signal-boost the brand that seemed like it was becoming my competition.”
As both the Actually Agents and The Broke Agent brands have grown over the years, however, the pair ultimately developed a mutual admiration and respect, Simon wrote.
“The point is simple: We are no longer enemies. After months of occasional Instagram likes and cryptic DM’s, we finally decided to put down our swords and just talk. After a few Zooms, it turns out we don’t hate each other at all. In fact, we actually like each other and have similar values and goals with our brands. We both stopped and thought, ‘Why the hell are we ignoring each other when we could work together and blow this thing up?'”
Thus, the new strategic partnership was born. Alboretti and Simon will co-produce entertaining and educational content for real estate professionals to “foster a sense of community and camaraderie within the real estate industry,” a press release said.
“This is a huge day for BAM,” Simon said in a press statement. “I have watched Luca grow Actually Agents and always envisioned working together at some point. He has built an amazing community and has provided nonstop laughter and value to his audience for years. This feels like a watershed moment for our brands, and I can’t wait to see where this takes us. Collaboration over competition.”
Simon’s real estate media company is not the only one to have made moves in recent weeks — Josh Flagg and his partners also launched Estate Media, a media company for the real estate industry, earlier in September.
Correction: An earlier version of this story referred to BAM as “Broke Agent Media,” however, the company changed its name to BAM in January.
