Who Is Daniel Daggers, Star of Netflix’s 'Buying London'?
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Daniel Daggers is shaking up the Netflix real estate reality show universe. In the premiere episode of Buying London, the founder of DDRE Global makes his debut while touring a property via a virtual reality headset. That contemporary exploration sets the tone for his real estate empire. Known as Mr. Super Prime—a self-proclaimed title and nod to homes priced at over $10 million—Daggers specializes in luxury properties. In his more than 25-year real estate career, he’s worked with high-profile clients, including royal families, and built a digitally led business. But the born-and-raised Londoner didn’t always have his sights set on real estate.
“I wanted to be a professional footballer, soccer [player] for [Americans],” he explains. “But I wasn't good enough, and real estate just gave me an opportunity to sort of build a life that I want to lead.”
Daggers was first introduced to the industry at 17 years old during a two-week placement as part of a business course in school. He explains: “I did it at an estate agency, but my father knew the owner of the business. It was a local business, and I did it there. And I licked a lot of stamps and a lot of envelopes, and I did a lot of chores and made some really bad teas. That's the truth.”
He adds, “If anyone wants a tip, if you're a junior, make a really bad tea and coffee, and then they'll never ask you again.”
After Daggers finished the course and broke his collarbone playing soccer, it was time to get serious about earning a living and finding independence. Luckily, his old boss from that two-week experience reached out after meeting with his father and discovering he didn’t have a job lined up yet. “He called me and asked me if I wanted the job permanently, and I said yes,” he says. “And that's how it all started back in 1997.”
Now, Daggers runs the London-based company DDRE Global, which he founded in 2020 before the start of the pandemic. Inspired by brokers and agents he’s met from around the world, Daggers set out to create a business that diverges from the traditional real estate agency model. It emphasizes a client-centric, technology-driven approach to buying and selling real estate in the super prime (aka ultra-luxury) market. That means everything from investing in quality content creation to using a dashboard with key analytics to understand how properties, on or off-market, perform in real-time.
The forward-thinking, virtual reality component, however, isn’t quite there yet. “I haven't used it with clients in particular because, at the moment, you're reliant that they've got the headset themselves unless you send it to them, which is a bit farfetched,” he says. “And some of our clients who are women don't often like putting things on their face and over their head. So I think there's a way to go with that.”
Virtual reality is taking off better in the interior design industry. “We've just helped a client interior design their home, and the interior designer has used the same technology to give impressions of what the home will look like," he says. "So we've done it for that, but not for [real estate] sales.”
DDRE Global’s offerings don’t end when a deal is struck. “We run a full-service business,” Daggers says. “So if a client is interested in buying a piece of real estate and then wants some advice as to who should they appoint when it comes to interior design or if they need some legal services or financial services, we will give them access to our black book.”
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Throughout his career, Daggers has seen and sold countless impressive homes. “I've been to loads of places around the world, so it's really hard to wow me,” he says. “It's a challenge for anyone out there who's got a home and wants to wow me. I'm up for it.”
One property that stands out among the rest is a home he sold for more than $100 million. “It was the closest residence to Her Majesty the Queen at the time,” he says. “She's passed away, so now it's the closest residence to His Royal Highness, to the King. That's pretty special.”
While Daggers is Mr. Super Prime, it’s not the price that gets him the most excited about a property. “It's more the setting and the view,” he says. “At the moment, we've got an apartment that we're about to bring to market for £14.5 million, and it sits on the sixth floor. So it's quite a low build for London, and it has the greatest view of London's cityscape I've ever seen.”
Another idyllic setting in the city is where Daggers resides: London’s Little Venice neighborhood. “There's a canal that runs through it, and it's one of the prettiest places in London anyone could ever live,” he says.
The home was built in 1820, and he refurbished the already modernized residence by adding side and rear extensions to boost its value. He finds the most serenity in his bathroom, where he can relax, and adores his “beautiful garden which, for central London, is very hard to find,” he says.
When it comes to what clients are currently seeking in a home, Daggers has noticed a shift toward wellness and longevity. “I'm seeing individual clients look to build little medical studios in their homes for their health and wellbeing,” he says, noting those include special machines and hired staff, like private doctors and physiotherapists.
On a broader scale, “a lot of people have moved to tax-positive states and countries also with good weather conditions,” he adds. “If you look at the amount of days of sunshine in these locations [that’s a] big factor as well as infrastructure of flying in and out. These things are really dictating wealth and where they're going.”
Naturally, Daggers says if you come to him it'll always be a good time to buy in London. But the market is appealing now. “We've had very little asset inflation, and I think whilst other markets, like Miami and Dubai and other places around the world, are increasing in value, London is still one of the great, well, in my eyes, it's the greatest city on the planet, and it's starting to look very reasonable against other markets and for the global investor.”
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