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The critics have not been too kind to the U.K.’s response to shows like Selling Sunset and Buying Beverly Hills: a new real estate reality TV show called Buying London, which was released on Netflix last week.
But that doesn’t bother Daniel Daggers, the founder of DDRE Global, and star of the series that follows Daggers and his firm’s agents around some of the poshest parts of London as they work to earn a living selling “super-prime” (the British term for ultra-luxury) homes.
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“Having the ability to give Netflix the key to open up London is not easy,” Daggers told Inman in a recent conversation. “But thankfully, we were able to do that. And there’s very few people that would be able to do that, so it’s a really exciting opportunity.”
Daggers recently sat down with Inman to discuss the show and its reception, his thoughts as an outsider on the commission lawsuits and resulting settlements, and other similar topics, including Americans’ “insane affinity” with the U.K. And he thinks this year could be a big one, in terms of U.S. investment abroad.
Getting a chance in the spotlight
The Guardian called Buying London, “probably the most hateable TV show ever made” and gave it a zero-star review. But Netflix took the scathing criticism and has run with it, promoting the show on X by touting the review by The Guardian’s Rebecca Nicholson, zero stars and all.
Daggers is no stranger to reality TV and is, therefore, perhaps better prepared than others when it comes to facing public criticism. He has made appearances on Million Dollar Listing New York, Million Dollar Listing LA and The Parisian Agency.
“They tend to wheel me out when they want a royal from the U.K.,” Daggers told Inman. “After doing that, I got sort of a good scare as to how Netflix works and its influence, and it was a bit of a no-brainer when they approached us, although it took us a little while to agree to everything because it was a big step for us.”
This time, the stakes were a bit higher, since the show focuses on his firm and his agents, without outside distraction. But Daggers, unlike many new agents featured in real estate reality TV shows, had more than two decades of experience under his belt before being thrown into the limelight.
“I had been in the industry for 25 years before we filmed the show,” he explained. “So I started off selling studio apartments for $100,000, and I climbed up the industry with my fingernails to get right to the top. And I’ve been here in a consistent manner for decades.
“And then, choosing to say, ‘Hey, I’m going to put myself out there to the world’ I think is a very brave step when you’ve already achieved this level of success,” Daggers continued. “But is there going to be criticism?” he asked in regard to critical reviews. “Absolutely. Whenever you do anything different, the majority will nearly always criticize.”
The cast of “Buying London”: Lauren Christy, Olivia Wayne, Oli Hamilton, Reme Nicole, Daniel Daggers, Rosi Walden, Rasa Bagdonaviciute, and Juliana Ardenius | Netflix
Observing the commission lawsuits from afar
Daggers said it’s been interesting having an outside perspective from which to view the major changes happening in the real estate industry in the U.S. in the wake of the commission lawsuits. From his perspective, he sees the U.K. brokerage firm model getting closer to the U.S.’s and vice-versa.
In the U.K., firms traditionally operate an estate agency model, which is not commission-based. Agents make a salary and also get a small commission on each transaction, where the firm takes the majority of that commission. Agents are paid by the seller, and, in the past, buyers often did not have representation in the transaction — although buyer representation this has become a growing trend in the last decade, Daggers said.
By contrast, now that more consumers are questioning the value of an agent in the U.S., it’s possible fewer American buyers may seek out agent representation state-side, leaning more towards the trends of old in the U.K.
“It’s very funny because your industry is moving towards our industry norm and our industry norm is moving towards your industry norm,” Daggers said. “And I think I know where it’s going to land. You’ve got these pain points in industries where they’re trying to find a new base because of the digitization of what we do and how things work.”
With the changes that are already being enacted in the industry as a result of the commission lawsuit settlements, like written buyer agency agreements, “more friction” will be introduced into the American residential real estate transaction, Daggers argued, which will make buying and selling homes more difficult for real estate professionals and consumers alike.
“My take really is very simple,” Daggers said. “The more friction there is for buyers to find real estate, the more difficult deals will be and the longer it will take to do deals.”
“The U.S. system prior to the NAR result was a very efficient system because it gave every real estate agent the opportunity to sell every piece of real estate,” Daggers continued. “And now, there will be friction among agents or brokers in introducing people to real estate, which will mean it will take longer for the real estate to sell and no one’s going to get any better service.”
Opportunity in an election year
Whenever an election year comes around, American investors seem to take a bigger interest in buying property in the U.K., Daggers told Inman. In years when the outcome seems particularly uncertain, it’s easy for U.S.-based buyers to start dreaming of a life across the pond, in case their desired candidate doesn’t win.
“The U.S. has an insane affinity with the U.K.,” Daggers explained. “They love the charm, the Britishness, the royal family, the architecture, the accent that I was given for free. The synergy is wonderful.”
Across both the U.S. and U.K., elections can be extremely polarizing, Daggers added. If their undesired candidate wins, wealthy individuals who have resources and flexibility will use those resources to live the life they want, often with London as a home base.
“What I’ve found over the years is that there’s been a lot of wealth created in the U.S., particularly in technology, where people have been grinding it out behind their desks for the past few decades and holidaying across the U.S. And now, they’re seeing because of the rise of social media, and now, shows on Netflix, there’s going to be an appetite to travel the world with their kids and gain some freedom because they’ve got the finance available to do that,” Daggers said.
“We’ve seen a lot of people from the U.S. move to London as their sort of ‘hop’ and then they skip and jump around Europe and Asia and places like that. We saw that in the last election; I suspect we’re going to see that in this election.”
Since Americans and Brits share the same language, it obviously makes that transition much easier, Daggers added, than American expats who might choose another European country as a home base. Daggers said for that reason, he ends up doing a lot of business with top brokers from the U.S.
But that shared language and American mania for all things British has also helped with Buying London’s rankings on Netflix, even if the critics disagree — within its first 48 hours of dropping on the platform, the show was one of the top 10 viewed Netflix shows in the U.S.
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