The day we meet, Daniel Daggers has just returned from Greece and admits he was feeling a “bit glum” on the way back from the airport. “That was until I passed through London,” says Daggers, founder and chief executive of prime estate agency DDRE Global and one of the stars of Netflix reality show Buying London.
“Looking out of the window, I was immediately reminded of how great the city is,” he adds. “It’s steeped in history and has amazing architecture and design. All the nuances of the buildings and the history behind them are remarkable.”
In his 27 years as an estate agent, Daggers estimates he has been involved in around £5.5bn worth of transactions, most of which have been in the prime and super-prime markets. His success at selling £10m-plus properties has been so great that he is often referred to by his Instagram account name, ‘Mr Superprime’.
It is a meteoric rise for someone who grew up in council housing in Maida Vale, west London, and left school with no idea what career to pursue. “All I knew was I wanted to make money and be independent,” says Daggers, who will be speaking at Property Week’s RESi360 conference next month.
All I knew was that I wanted to make money and be independent
His property industry break came just before he turned 18 when he did a two-week work placement that helped him secure a job with local agency Vickers & Company.
The first property he sold was for around £117,000 in 1997. Daggers can still remember the client, adding that he maintained a business relationship with them for two decades. “So that was pretty special,” he says.
London high life: DDRE Global is marketing a four-bed flat near Charing Cross for £14.5m
He worked for Vickers & Company for 10 years, during which time he became involved in ever-bigger deals. “After I sold an apartment for over £1m, I realised I wasn’t just dealing with the low-price market anymore and I wanted to go and play at one of the big boys.”
A move to estate agency giant Knight Frank followed in 2007. It was during his time there that Daggers started posting images and details about prime properties on social media and his Mr Superprime account took off. By the end of 2019, he had amassed 30,000 Instagram followers and become the firm’s most high-profile agent. “I climbed up through the corporate agency and sold a lot of property,” he says.
Then, at the end of 2019, he left Knight Frank. The Financial Times ran a story at the time alleging he had left after posting images of a wealthy client’s home on Instagram without the seller’s permission. Daggers won’t be drawn on the reasons behind his departure, but says with a wry smile: “I’ll write a book one day and reveal what happened.”
By this time, Daggers was confident enough to strike out on his own, which led him to found prime specialist DDRE Global at the start of 2020.
Rapid growth
Four years on, the business – along with Daggers’ profile – has grown rapidly. The latest published accounts show DDRE Global had more than £3.2m in the bank in the year to the end of March 2023, while Daggers now has more than 103,000 Instagram followers.
The firm’s current London listings include a four-bed penthouse in Holland Park Gate, available for a cool £32.5m, and an eight-bed Regency house in St John’s Wood, with a purchase price of £24.9m.
Old-world charm: DDRE Global is marketing this nine-bedroom property in Radlett for offers over £15m
As the name suggests, DDRE Global also operates worldwide. International properties on its books include a nine-bed villa in Marbella, Spain, with a guide price of €23.5m (£19.8m), as well as a 10-bed villa in Jumeirah, Dubai, for £33.2m.
“I love looking at any type of property that is special and difficult to replicate, because that’s the kind of property my client base likes,” he says.
DDRE Global is focused on the residential market, but Daggers says it could move into commercial property in the future. “Most of our clients who buy luxury homes also look to make commercial investments – so the opportunity is there,” he says. “It’s about whether we have the right people in our team to do that. So, if talented people within the commercial investment and capital markets wanted to base their business from DDRE Global’s foundations, then we would enable them.”
I say everything that I mean, and I mean everything that I say
DDRE Global’s roster of clients include wealthy businesspeople and celebrities.
Well-known names who have provided testimonials for its website include comedian Ricky Gervais and businessman and former Dragons’ Den ‘dragon’ Tej Lalvani, who describes Daggers as “a property superstar”.
Daggers believes his secret power is his authenticity. “I say everything that I mean, and I mean everything that I say,” he says. “Clients feel that.”
One thing he does not do is wine and dine clients. “I never have,” he says. “I don’t have to schmooze someone to do business with me. I want them to do business because they feel they’re going to have someone who’s genuinely interested in helping and is very good at what they do.”
Prime penthouse: DDRE Global is marketing this five-bedroom apartment near Hampstead Heath for offers over £19.95m
Despite operating at the very top of the residential market, Daggers says it is not necessarily the really big deals that motivate him. “People think my most memorable transactions are the ones over $100m, but they’re not,” he says. “The ones I think about most are the meaningful ones and the people involved with them. For example, helping an old woman achieve a premium on her home that enables her to live the rest of her life in a positive way – that touches your heartstrings.”
Data published this month by TwentyEA shows the market share of self-employed agents has increased by 85% in the past year and more than 900% since 2019. Daggers believes the real estate industry is undergoing a fundamental shift, with agents wanting more agility and to make more money.
He says when he started his career almost 30 years ago, the big firms were capturing most of the industry’s talent. Now, the market has shifted. “Most of the talent are leaving to set up their own independent businesses or platforms,” he says. “Everything is changing; everything that we knew to be concrete is no longer concrete. If you fail to adapt to new norms, you die.”
Changing landscape
The internet has dramatically changed the landscape, enabling real estate agents to reach buyers and sellers globally. It is no longer a case of needing to have chains of estate agency offices or to specialise in one location. “We are a people business; we go wherever our clients go and we are growing overseas,” he says. “I’m everywhere my clients are and wherever they want to transact.”
Setting up a real estate business in the current market has its challenges, however. “Selling, buying, renting and leasing real estate is the least of our problems – we can do that,” says Daggers. “It is things like producing content without any paid media and building a business without any external capital that have posed the biggest challenges.”
Everything is changing. If you fail to adapt to new norms, you die
Most of DDRE Global’s clients have come through personal recommendation, but social media content is increasingly important. “We are hitting, on average, 1.6 million people a month with content,” says Daggers.
The current high-interest-rate market has posed a challenge for much of the real estate industry over the past couple of years. However, the prime residential market has been largely insulated from the broader economic woes, partly because of the limited availability of stock.
Striking deals in the prime market remains complex nonetheless, says Daggers. “Sellers in the prime residential market don’t usually need to sell,” says Daggers. “It’s a ‘want market’ for them. Want markets are really difficult to work in; we need ‘need markets’.”
He believes the sector can draw lessons from the global financial crisis. “Anyone who has been in this industry for a while will remember 2007-08 and the descriptive terms people were using at the time like ‘blood on the street’ and ‘never going to recover’. Nobody knew that the [prime central London] market would bounce back as quickly as it did.
“I’m not suggesting we’re going to get such a vigorous bounce-back now; but the point is that when you’re in a dip, it almost feels like the market is never going to get back on track – but experience will tell you otherwise.”
To help the next generation of agents and entrepreneurs, Daggers has set up DDRE Academy, an online training programme that teaches individuals how to build their personal brand, among a range of other skills. “I want my legacy to be about helping others in the industry,” he says.
“My advice to aspiring agents is if you spot an opportunity and you’re hungry and determined, go for it. When you’re that passionate about something, nothing can stop you.”
Daggers says the focus remains on growing DDRE Global but he does not rule out selling up. He says he was recently offered £50m for the business on the condition he stayed for 10 years, but he declined the offer, believing it was better to remain independent.
“We are building a business that I think is fit for the future of this industry, whereas a lot of other businesses aren’t.”
Daniel Daggers will be among the speakers at this year’s RESi360 Conference, taking place at De Vere Wokefield Estate in Berkshire from 2-4 October.
The conference, which also incorporates the BTR360 build-to-rent event, brings together the best of the residential development sector.
Designed for developers, investors, agents and other industry experts, RESi360 will offer more than two days of insight and networking opportunities. The event programme will cover a variety of industry hot topics, including single-family rental, residential-led urban regeneration, investment models, proptech innovations, the
ESG agenda and much more. There will be both formal and informal networking opportunities and the option to accrue CPD hours.
