Daniel Daggers is on the verge of something massive, which is saying a lot for a man who has been known as “Mr Super Prime” for nearly a decade.
Buying London, a TV reality show following Daggers and the team of agents at his boutique luxury real estate agency DDRE, dropped on Netflix this week, giving viewers who loved shows likeSelling Sunset and Million Dollar Listing the chance to peek behind the curtains of some of London’s most extravagant properties.
“It’s like London is this secret that no one ever sees, and we’ve got the key to give them access to it,” says the 44-year-old.
Jewish real estate mogul Daniel Daggers is the face of Netflix's new reality show Buying London, set to be released on 22 May, 2024. (Photo: Netflix)
His company – and indeed his own personal brand – has been on a skyward trajectory for years now.
The Jewish property mogul from Maida Vale, who began his career aged 17 selling studio flats, said he once knew nothing about the world of “chauffeur-driven cars, helicopters, private jets and multi-million-pound homes” in which he now finds himself.
Daggers worked for two estate agencies before setting out to “revolutionise” the industry with his own independent “super prime” real estatecompany, DDRE, in 2020.
His “person-focused” model, in which each agent works as an independent contractor, more closely resembles the real- estate scene in the US, with listings sold off-market in exclusive deals and individual agents vying for jaw-dropping commissions.
Homes listed on his website include a St John’s Wood house for £40 million, a five-bedroom home in Tel Aviv for £17 million and a six-bedroom villa in the Bahamas, a snip at £19 million.
The corresponding commission fees for agents are enough to turneven the meekest into a shark and, when it comes to his posse of Instagram-ready agents, Daggers–who has sold more than £5 billion worth of London property in his 26-year career –is a fan of meritocracy.
He believes that striking a balance between competition and camaraderie is the key to sustaining the success of his business – all the while keeping up the entertainment factor that makes it perfect for reality TV.
“We are prepared to collaborate with anybody. If you cannot collaborate with the people you work with, it’s going to be more difficult to collaborate with people outside your business. So that’s one of the founding tools of being successful for me,” says Daggers.
“Is there competition? Absolutely. Should there be? Yes, especially if we want our clients to be successful. It’s just honing that in the right way.”
Daniel Daggers, 44. (Photo: Netflix)
Naturally competitive, Daggers played in the Maccabi Sunday football league from his youth into adulthood, representing Brady Maccabin and the London Lions, and Maccabi GB at the Maccabiah Games.
He recalls buying issues of the JC and flipping to the sports section to see if he’d featured.
“We would all run out on a Friday to get the paper and there would often be pictures of me and the team that I played in on the back page, which was great fun, and I’ve got loads of paper clippings from that time.”
Daggers says he hasn’t changed much since those days; he’s always been highly competitive, driven and full of passion. He is also a proud Londoner and he finds it difficult to pick a part of the city to call his favourite. Though he is clearly very fond of his corner of Little Venice, a cluster of streets around the Paddington side of Regent’s Canal, he says that, like all “real Londoners,” he loves different parts of the capital for different reasons.
“It’s like a bowl of ingredients and you can pick and choose what you want to eat whenever you want, and so while my home is amazing – I think Little Venice is one of the most beautiful neighbourhoods on the planet – I’ll go to different neighbourhoods for different reasons, a bit like restaurants.”
Now Buying London is out, it’s unlikely that Daggers will be able to go anywhere in the city without being recognised. But, then again, he’s been known around town as “Mr Super Prime” for years, making use of his growing persona as a marketing tool. Mr Super Prime has more than 65,000 Instagram followers.
Daggers is exceptionally savvy in his use of social media, and, as a result, DDRE has spent next to nothing on marketing. His best advertisem*nt to date? The Netflix series.
“What we did is we created content, and with that content and content distribution, we have built now an incredible business all by ourselves and we take a lot of pride in that,” Daggers says. “And that’s just the beginning.”
