Move over Selling Sunset – the Netflix series featuring the ultra-glamorous estate agents of Beverley Hills – there’s a new real estate porn series in town.
Making its debut on the streaming service on May 22, Buying London focuses on the stunning real estate of the capital’s ‘super prime’ areas, Belgravia, Chelsea, Kensington, Hampstead, St John’s Wood, Knightsbridge, Mayfair and Notting Hill.
But since Buying London’s tagline is ‘big properties, bigger personalities’, the other stars of the show are the ultra-glamorous staff of luxury estate agency DRE Global – and in particular its founder and boss Daniel Daggers.
He is known to his more than 65,000 Instagram followers as Mr Super Prime, but with some justification: the average property on his books is valued at £10.9 million.
Daggers, 44, who grew up in public housing and started selling studios in 1998, has created a global agency thanks to the social media platform.
Ultra-glamorous: ‘Mr Super Prime’ Daniel Daggers, center, pictured with his high-flying brokers at DRE Globa
It’s a strategy that has disrupted the operation of superprime real estate. A beautifully shot video, with a funny reaction from an expensively dressed celebrity agent, is now essential for marketing an expensive house or apartment in the city or in the country.
Thanks to the use of social media, Daggers has been able to close £5 billion worth of deals since drawing up the grand design for DRE on his kitchen table during lockdown.
DRE deals include the sale of a £95m white stucco-fronted house in Carlton Gardens, close to Buckingham Palace, to US billionaire Ken Griffin, chief executive of the Citadel hedge fund.
Daggers predicts that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s controversial reforms to the tax system will change the nature of demand for such townhouses, as well as townhouses and large detached homes in prime addresses.
From April 2025, those from abroad who come to live in Britain will escape tax on their foreign income for just four years.
The appeal of London will remain great: the architecture and culture of our capital have a unique appeal. But the wealthy who come to settle here will be those who plan to stay longer and settle in an area with heritage, but also with facilities.
“In prime London, family-oriented neighborhoods will outperform the rest of the market in the coming year,” says Daggers. According to him, there will be a particular demand for homes with outdoor space ‘in locations with good facilities and world-class schools’.
In the first quarter of this year, DRE acted on the sale of property worth £55 million in Britain. Nearly 60 percent of all homes sold by the real estate agency are homes sold ‘off the market’. The average price in this category is £23 million.
These transactions are discreet, with ownership details initially shared only with those deemed capable of affording these super-prime digs.
Although the affable Daggers is always immaculately dressed and booted, or wears expensive casual clothes, he is the diametric opposite of the archetypal high-society broker, who is more estuary than Etonian.
Nor does he indulge in fake humility. He thinks James Bond star Daniel Craig should play him in the movie of his life, and seems only half-serious about it.
In the gossipy language of high-end real estate, Daggers’ hugely successful exploitation of social media is seen as ironic, as posting the photos of a house on Instagram is said to have been the reason for his departure from the Knight Frank agency in 2019. The post would have been considered an invasion of customer privacy.
But Daggers seems to have never looked back.
In his Instagram post and videos, he can be seen standing in front of or walking around immaculate properties, pointing out key architectural and decor features.
You can also find him behind the wheel of his various expensive cars, complaining about parking fines, reading a piece about him in this month’s Tatler magazine or celebrating a sale at an exclusive bar.
He also talks about his love for his parents and Arsenal football club. Before the premier league of real estate beckoned, Daggers had a spell as a player for Hayes Town FC.
Netflix tells us that “at a luxury real estate agency, the only thing hotter than the super-prime properties is the fiery office drama.”
The DDRE agents are depicted in tense situations, but never poorly dressed or in a lackluster setting.
The heels are high, the blow-drying is perfect and the houses, hotels and restaurants they visit are all impeccably decorated and furnished.
Nothing could be further from the lifestyle of most Londoners or the houses or flats they live in. But Buying London is bursting onto our screens against the backdrop of a more positive mood in the city’s property market.
The return to work and the lure of the bright lights are drawing house hunters back, as the latest data from Rightmove and estate agency Hamptons shows.
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