Barbara Corcoran is one of the most successful American business women, founding a real estate firm before expanding her interest into becoming an entrepreneur and television personality. To the American public, she is perhaps best known for being an investor on the ABC series “Shark Tank”. A full fledged business owner, Barbara Corcoran has certainly made her mark on the real estate and television scene.
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Barbara Ann Corcoran was born on March 10th, 1949 in Edgewater, New Jersey. Her beginnings were certainly humble as Barbara grew up with 9 brothers and sisters in a two bedroom house. She graduated from St. Thomas Aquinas College in 1971 with a degree in education intent on a teaching career. However, after only a single year of teaching in school she left and worked a number of different jobs which including a part time job renting apartments in New York City.
Her dreams of being her own boss finally came true in 1973 when she founded the real estate business known as The Corcoran Group assisted by her boyfriend who helped back the venture with a $1,000 loan. As her business grew, she began publishing The Corcoran Report which highlighted real estate trends and data in New York City. The success of this report was due in large part to the bravado of Barbara Corcoran herself. Despite a small sample size, she sent out this report to major publications in the New York City area and within a single week, newspapers such as The New York Times had cited her report. This gave her report the legitimacy it needed and helped greatly expand her business.
Selling her business to NRT Incorporated for $66 million in 2001, Barbara Corcoran went from being a business owner to a very wealthy entrepreneur who now dabbles in several projects, most notably the ABC series Shark Tank. However, she is also a noted columnist, who writes for publications such as The Daily Review, More Magazine and even Redbook. Barbara Corcoran has written several books which include “Shark Tales: How I turned $1,000 into a Billion Dollar Business” and “Nextville: Amazing Places to Live your Life”. She has promoted both herself and her books on popular TV shows like CNN’s Larry King Live.
A syndicated columnist, investor, lecturer and speaker and business consultant, Barbara Corcoran has been very prominent on the real estate scene. However, it must be noted that the housing collapse that began in 2007 was something that she did not predict. In 2005 interview for Business Week she made this statement.
“Of course there’s no bubble. I think we’re just getting started…”
Despite missing that prediction, the subsequent fall of the housing market has not appreciably affected her business efforts. In fact, her knack at making the right investments has turned her profits from selling her business into over $1 billion in net gains. For Entrepreneur Magazine, she reported that her favorite investment so far has been in “ILoveDaisyCakes.com”, one that she got from participating in the series “Shark Tank”.
Today, Barbara Corcoran still travels the country, delivers lectures and looks for new business opportunities. She is a stunning example of the American dream come true.