Barbara Corcoran is one of the very few women who have ventured into the real estate business and subsequently made tons of money doing what they love.

She has earned the respect of many by battling it out with men in the real estate business and we’re going to take a look at how far the Real Estate Iron Lady a.k.a Queen of New York Real Estate has come to be where she is; at the top of Manhattans real estate empire.

Barbara Corcoran’s Bio

Name: Barbara Ann Corcoran

Born:March 10, 1949 (Edgewater, New Jersey)

Nationality: American

Occupation: Founder of The Corcoran Group, Real Estate Investor, Speaker, Business Consultant, Syndicated Columnist, Author, Television Personality (Shark Tank), Investor.

Children: 2

Credited For: Manhattans Real Estate Developments

Net Worth: $40M (Celebrity Networth)

Barbara Corcoran’s Early Life

Barbara Ann Corcoran better known as Barbara Corcoran was born in Edgewater, New Jersey. As one of ten kids in a blue-collar family, she grew up sharing a bedroom with her five sisters.

Barbara’s mother didn’t understand much about the business world but she did understand two things:

1) How the world works.

2) How to make the most of what you’ve got.

Barbara Corcoran’s mother had a real gift for grooming her children’s gifts and she nurtured the unique talents in each of her ten children.

After graduating from St. Thomas Aquinas College with a degree in education, Barbara Corcoran taught in a school for a year after which she worked in various jobs including renting apartments in New York City.

Barbara Corcoran Ventures Into Real Estate 

Feeling the need to be her own boss, Barbara Corcoran quit her job as a waitress, borrowed a $1,000 loan from her boyfriend and co-founded a real estate business in 1973 called the Corcoran Group in New York City together with her boyfriend. In the mid-1970s, Barbara began publishing The Corcoran Report on real estate data trends in New York City.

Over the next 25 years, Barbara Corcoran turned her $1,000 loan into a real estate empire worth $5 Billion. The Corcoran Group is today New York’s premier residential real estate brokerage netting over $1 Billion in annual revenue. It’s also one of the largest and best brands in the Real Estate industry.

In 2001, Barbara Corcoran sold her business to the giant NRT Incorporated for $66 million. (NRT LLC is the largest residential real estate brokerage company in the United States of America with headquarters in Parsippany, New Jersey.  It is a subsidiary of Realogy Corporation)

Barbara Corcoran The Real Estate Commentator

Barbara Corcoran is a vibrant and outspoken Real Estate commenter. She stated in an interview with the Business Week in 2005 that there was no real estate bubble at the time-“Of course there’s no bubble. I think we’re just getting started… There are so many more buyers than there are homes to sell. Bidding and overbidding are the norm of the day. So it’s going to take a lot to slow this market. Even if it does – which I don’t see the signs of – it will still slow down slowly. That’s not what a bubble does”

Barbara Corcoran The Columnist

Barbara Corcoran is a columnist for The Daily Review, Redbook and the More Magazine. She has been featured on TV shows like the Larry King Live.

Barbara Corcoran The Shark Tank Investor

Barbara Corcoran is an investor/shark in the Shark Tank show and she has invested in several start-ups

ever since the show first aired.

Shark Tank is an American Reality TV show produced by Mark Burnett and aired on ABC television. The show basically involves entrepreneurs presenting their business ideas to a group of five investors better known as the sharks who are willing to invest in start-ups that they see as promising and if the idea is good enough, they’ll even fight each other for a piece of the cake (in monetary terms of course). The show first premiered on August 9th 2009

Barbara Corcoran The Speaker And Author

Barbara Corcoran has a refreshing and energetic “tell it like it is” attitude which has seen her becoming an outspoken motivational and inspirational speaker. She shares her first hand experiences while first entering into the real estate business with her audience in a move to better educate them on what to do and what to avoid when entering into business.

She has also authored several books and a few of them include:

• If You Don’t Have Big Breasts, Put Ribbons on Your Pigtails (2003, co-authored with Bruce Littlefield)-The book despite its title gives a unique, fresh and frank look at how to be successful in business and life in general. Its smart and motivating tips have catapulted it to become a national best-seller.
• Nextville: Amazing Places to Live Your Life (2008)
• Shark Tales: How I Turned $1,000 into a Billion Dollar Business (2011, co-authored with Bruce Littlefield)-It includes her experience as a Shark Tank investor.

Barbara Corcoran has come a long way to defy all odds like getting straight D’s in high school and college, having 20 different jobs by the time she was 23 and even working as a waitress in Manhattan and as a result of her hard and smart work as well as persistence in the real estate business, she has been nicknamed the Queen of New York Real Estate.

Barbara Corcoran credits her overall success not just to her perspiration and determination but also to her mother’s valuable advice.

“Buy with your heart, not your head. You can look at all the aspects that make a purchase practical, but that kind of thinking makes it an investment rather than a home”– Barbara Corcoran