The property industry is changing. Almost 5,000 high street sales and lettings agencies closed last year, according to Property Industry Eye.
Since lockdowns, we have seen a rise in self-employed estate agents, a shift in the way that properties are marketed online — fewer static images and Matterports; more slick tour videos — and a growing number of sales made on social media.
At the forefront of this change is a new breed of property influencers: young, entrepreneurial, ambitious, and in touch with their vast audiences.
One of them is even set to star in a new Netflix show Buying London, the UK version of the Emmy-nominated Selling Sunset.
Meet the propfluencers shaking up London’s property scene.
Daniel Daggers
@daniel_daggers
YouTube: 1.63K | Instagram: 63.5K | TikTok: 10.3K
Arguably Daniel Daggers, or Mr Super Prime as he appears online, is the original property influencer, and one who discovered the potential pitfalls of propfluencing in the world of the traditional estate agency early on.
He gained notoriety in 2019 when he resigned from Knight Frank after posting photos of a £10 million home allegedly without permission and took that as his cue to go it alone, using what he sensed were the sales tactics of the future.
“If you ask most people if they’ve had a good experience with estate agents they’ll say no.”
Daggers launched DDRE Global in 2020 and now operates his estate agency/content factory from two floors of a co-working space in Marylebone.
His independent agency is set to star in Buying London, a new show from Netflix focused on the capital’s super prime property market.
“We’re moving the industry forward,” says Daggers. “If you ask most people if they’ve had a good experience with estate agents they’ll say no. I want to have a positive impact on the industry.”
His mission is to adopt something akin to an American model of estate agency, with agents operating more independently than in a traditional British firm and each individual attracting their own social media follower base. “People get the glory for the work they do.”
There’s a TikTok Hype House feel to the approach, with the same property video introduced by multiple agents to maximise eyeballs on a listing — the idea being that people follow their favourite personalities and are drawn to posts according to who is fronting them.
“The human being is the advertiser. A corporate message is nowhere near as impactful as personal content.”
Daggers says his model is for “people who want to live an excellent life, who want to be more, make more money and feel incentivised to work hard. They can be as great as they want to be and we create more entrepreneurs, which I think the UK needs.”
Ari Reid
@arireidproperty
Instagram: 297K | TikTok: 248.2K
“Hi guys,” begin Ari Reid’s social media posts — whether she is showing viewers Chelsea’s Georgian townhouses, red brick Mayfair mansions or a luxury villa in Bali. Iconic London streets and aspirational properties are presented with a “Kate Middleton-esque, very English, very well-dressed look”.
“It’s very natural to me,” says Reid. “It’s that English package, which people love.”
Reid, in her mid-30s, moved from asset management into property in 2020, building a social media following during lockdown.
“I’m an accidental property influencer,” she says. “On social media, you can show people who you are. That’s what people really resonate with. I’m not telling people that I’m this, or I’m that. I’m just doing my videos. I’m just having fun. But I’m doing the job. I’m learning my facts. I’m accountable, and I’ve been so for the last two-and-a-bit years. I think that says something.”
“As a mixed-race, half-Filipino woman living in a predominantly white environment, I wanted to use my brain, not my looks.”
She recently challenged her 500,000 followers to a game of tennis – her way of connecting with her audience.
“Every now and then, I’ll just do that to stay humble, to stay in the game. I never want to feel like I’m better than anyone else —not that I’m worse— but I feel that everyone is equal.”
Alongside running her social media, presenting, writing and modelling, Reid’s “main baby” is her agency and consultancy, Ari Reid Property. She is also an independent agent with Walton Estates. Her own experience is evidence, she believes, that the property industry is becoming a more flexible, entrepreneurial space.
“This job is so multi-faceted. We can become these go-getter entrepreneurs, which is an incredible thing in our society,” she says. “It’s constantly developing. I’m becoming more than just a property agent — I’m also more of a personality within the UK, as well as a property voice for women.”
With her followers still growing in number, Reid has big aims. “As a mixed-race, half-Filipino woman living in a predominantly white environment, I wanted to use my brain, not my looks, to show people that anyone can do this. That’s a big passion of mine,” she says. “My dream is to have my own global TV show; to become the next Anthony Bourdain and try to break down barriers through real estate around the world.”
“I love what I do,” she adds. “I found my ikigai, as they say in Japanese.”
Summer Newman and Matt Mellor
@TheLuxuryHomeShow
YouTube: 645K | Instagram: 216K | TikTok: 575.9K
Couple Summer Newman and Matt Mellor run The Luxury Home Show, the popular property tour series. Viewers are guided around a RIBA award-winning country estate, a luxurious log cabin in Norway, a Notting Hill townhouse, a mega-mansion in Dubai.
“Our style is very natural and relaxed,” says Newman. “We want the viewer to feel like they’re in the room with the presenter.”
Newman and Mellor, 24 and 26, were both estate agents when they met in 2018. They started The Luxury Home Show in 2020, initially producing video tours of their own listings. Keen to start showcasing luxury properties, they offered to produce videos for other agents for free. “Most of the time, we were told no,” says Mellor. “We believed in the potential of what it could become.”
It took around eight months for the channel to gain traction, with daily posts. Now, they employ a team of seven, have expanded into international property and are flooded with enquiries to appear on the channel — most of which they have to turn down. “It’s the other way round to the start,” says Mellor.
“It’s our mission to raise the overall standards of how estate agents are perceived in the UK.”
The channel is no longer just about making sales. “‘Luxury’ is subjective. We try to keep the audience as the core focus,” says Mellor.
“We’re always trying to find interesting stories and properties that are unique. The interiors matter most, because most of our tours are inside the house and a lot of people are watching for inspiration on home design.”
On their personal social media accounts, however, Newman and Mellor have greater scope to showcase other aspects of their lives: trips to Vegas, Norway and Dubai make up some of Newman’s recent posts. Newman has 1.6 million followers on TikTok, plus 57,000 on Instagram (@summernewman), compared to Mellor’s has 29,200 on Instagram (@mattmellor), which she credits to her short-form videos being reposted by other accounts.
“That’s very humble for Summer to say,” says Mellor. “Summer is incredible at producing content and has inspired many others to produce similar. The type of walk-throughs that we were doing on Instagram and TikTok all those years ago are common now – she pioneered that.”
The Luxury Home Show is the couple’s priority — “It’s its own business, rather than there to help grow something else”, says Mellor— but their personal accounts play an important role in their success. “We’re moving into an era where if you grow your personal brand and showcase aspects of your life, people will follow your journey and want to work with you, before even meeting you in person,” says Newman. “They feel like, through social media, they’ve already got to know you.”
In 2021, Newman and Mellor launched an agency, Luxury Property Partners, hoping to shake up the industry.
“It’s our mission to raise the overall standards of how estate agents are perceived in the UK,” says Mellor. “We do hope that we inspire others. We’re very passionate about what we do.”
Toby Corban
@TobyCorban | @Tobyalbert | @londonrealestate
YouTube : 40.1K | Instagram: 215K | TikTok: 348.3K
At 30, Toby Corban runs his own estate agency, Corban Group, and has more than 600,000 followers across his Instagram, TikTok and YouTube accounts. He started it at the end of 2019, just before the pandemic.
“The timing wasn’t great,” says Corban. “I realised I need to do more. Relying on my friends and family in London isn’t going to cut it, especially if I want to compete against big corporates.”
Corban created a TikTok account in 2020, aiming to provide marketing for his clients, build his personal brand and “provide value” online, rather than using it to sell properties outright. His recent posts include a tour of a tiny home in a forest, a luxurious duplex apartment in Boston and an area guide to Notting Hill.
“It sounds simple, but it’s home tours,” says Corban, who presents the videos himself, relaxed and well-dressed (he often collaborates with menswear brands). “Some of my content is me enjoying my time out on a preview. That’s my real estate enthusiast side coming out, Not everyone is looking to buy or rent somewhere, they get to enjoy my content too.”
“I wouldn’t call myself an influencer — I’m not aiming to influence anyone.”
Corban’s second TikTok video went viral.
“I wasn’t aware of the power of social media until that video. It showed me that I need to take this platform more seriously — also because of its power within the business space.”
Corban has built relationships, started conversations and even closed deals through social media. “I’ve been able to build trust with clients before actually meeting them in person,” he says. “That’s the major role of building a personal brand.”
Corban’s social media has evolved into a separate business, with companies keen for him to create, sponsor and feature in content. As a result, he launched Corban Media (corbanmediaagency.com), which has been running for two-and-a-half years. How does Corban describe himself?
“I’m a real estate adviser and content creator. I wouldn’t call myself an influencer — I’m not aiming to influence anyone. But I do understand that there are few terms to describe what I do.”
As his business has evolved, so too have Corban’s aims. “Starting out, my goal was just to participate in the industry. I’ve accomplished that,” he says. “For me now, [my goal] is to be a part of the change in the industry and to be at the forefront of innovation.”
Jade Vanriel
@JadeVanrielx
YouTube: 62K | Instagram: 55K | TikTok: 16.3K
“I was one of the first people to do this sort of thing,” says Jade Vanriel, who has been talking about property on her YouTube channel since 2015 — long before most others. “I walked so that other people can run.”
Vanriel, who trained as a lawyer, started her YouTube as a side project, producing content that was “just copying everyone else”. But in 2016, at 22, Vanriel documented the process of saving up for, and buying, a flat in Essex. “I finally had something to talk about on YouTube. It went viral because I was so young and people were shocked,” she says. “I realised there was a huge gap in the market for educational content.”
Vanriel quickly “got bored of talking about herself” and approached property developers to film video tours for her channel. “So many of them said no,” she says. “The property industry did not care about socials. They didn’t encourage it.”
Vanriel succeeded in “sneaking into” a few developments. The traction she gained on her first videos — her first tour got 40,000 views — meant that developers finally began to say yes. “It quickly started to snowball,” says Vanriel. “It wasn’t planned, and that’s what makes it exciting. It wasn’t even a job when I began.”
“I like to influence people to make good money decisions.”
Yet since 2019, Vanriel’s social media has been her full-time job. She works with developers, banks and financial companies to produce property tours and educational videos. Vanriel also consults estate agencies and property brands on their social media, sources properties — including for the rapper Tion Wayne — and runs her own interiors brand, Vanriel Home.
“I prefer to call myself a content creator,” she says. “In a way, I am a property influencer — but I like to influence people to buy the right property. I’m not just going to share anything. I like to influence people to make good money decisions.”
Vanriel’s feed combines property posts with lifestyle content: clothes, hotels and meals out. Her content is guided by her audience of young professionals and families of a similar age. “I also share my life with my audience, so they know who I am,” says Vanriel. “I think that’s why I’ve been able to do it for so long – because a lot of my audience know me.”
Now in her eighth year, Vanriel is happy to have been part of a wider change in the industry. “It was almost like a private members’ club when I started. I think because I didn’t fit a certain aesthetic, they assumed that my audience would be just like me: they wouldn’t have money; they wouldn’t be interested — and they wouldn’t be buying,” she says.
“My client, the rapper [Wayne], came to me because I understood him. I knew what he was looking for: he could speak to me, he could be himself. We’re selling to our own peers. I believe that’s why the industry is doing well. We know how to speak to our audiences online, what people are looking for, what’s important… It’s amazing to see such a change in such a short space of time.”
