Barbara Ann Corcoran (born March 10, 1949) is an American businesswoman, investor, syndicated columnist, and television personality. She founded The Corcoran Group, a real estate

broker A broker is a person or firm who arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller for a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal. Neither role should be confu ...

age in New York City, which she sold to NRT for $66 million in 2001 and shortly thereafter exited the company. One of the show's original "Shark" investors, Corcoran has appeared in all 13 seasons of ABC's '' Shark Tank'' to date. As of January 2023, she has made 130 deals on the show, the largest being a $350,000 investment for 40% of Coverplay. Corcoran is a columnist for '' More'', '' The Daily Review'', and '' Redbook'', writes a weekly column in the New York '' Daily News'', and has written several books. She has been featured on ''

Larry King Live ''Larry King Live'' was an American television talk show hosted by Larry King on CNN from 1985 to 2010. It was the channel's most watched and longest-running program, with over one million viewers nightly. Mainly aired from CNN's Los Angeles ...

'' and

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

's ''

Today Today (archaically to-day) may refer to: * Day of the present, the time that is perceived directly, often called ''now'' * Current era, present * The current calendar date Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Today'' (1930 film), a 1930 ...

'' show, and hosts ''The Millionaire Broker with Barbara Corcoran'' on

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...

Early life and education

Corcoran was born in

Edgewater, New Jersey Edgewater is a borough located along the Hudson River in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough had a population of 11,513,/nowiki>''sic''/nowiki> Hill Road was an important route to the top o ...

, the second of 10 children in a working class

Irish-Catholic Irish Catholics are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland whose members are both Catholic and Irish. They have a large diaspora, which includes over 36 million American citizens and over 14 million British citizens (a quarter of the Briti ...

family. Her mother, Florence, was a homemaker. Her father, Edwin W. Corcoran Jr., bounced from job to job throughout Corcoran's childhood. At times, her family relied on deliveries of free food from a friendly local grocer. Corcoran remembers her father as a man who occasionally drank too much and treated her mother with disrespect and condescension, particularly when he'd been drinking. Corcoran struggled throughout her schooling, later learning that she had dyslexia. She attended a local Catholic elementary school and started high school at St. Cecilia High School in Englewood. After flunking several courses during her freshman year, Corcoran transferred to

Leonia High School Leonia High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grade from the Borough of Leonia in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States, operating as part of the Leonia Public Schools. Student ...

, where she graduated as a D student. Corcoran graduated from St. Thomas Aquinas College with a degree in education in 1971, faring better than she had in her previous schooling.

Career

After graduating college, she taught school for a year but soon moved on. She had worked a total of 20 jobs by the time she was 23, including a side job renting apartments in New York City. While she was a waitress, her boyfriend convinced her to work for a real estate company. She wanted to be her own boss, and in 1973, while working as a receptionist for the Giffuni Brothers' real estate company in New York City, co-founded The Corcoran-Simonè with her boyfriend, who loaned $1,000. She split from her boyfriend seven years later after he told her he was going to marry her secretary and she then formed her own firm, The Corcoran Group. In the mid-1970s, she also began publishing ''The Corcoran Report'', a newsletter covering real estate data trends in New York City. In 2001, Corcoran sold her business to NRT for $66 million. In September 2017, Corcoran was announced as a contestant for season 25 of '' Dancing with the Stars,'' where she was partnered with

Keo Motsepe Keoikantse Motsepe (born 24 November 1989) is a South African dancer. His dancing styles are Latin and Ballroom. He is known for being the first black professional dancer on the ABC show ''Dancing with the Stars''. Life and career Motsepe sta ...

Personal life

Corcoran lives in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

with her husband, Bill Higgins, a retired Navy captain and former

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...

agent who participated in the

Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...

. The couple married in 1988. Corcoran gave birth to their son in 1994, via

in vitro fertilization In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is a process of fertilisation where an egg is combined with sperm in vitro ("in glass"). The process involves monitoring and stimulating an individual's ovulatory process, removing an ovum or ova (egg or eggs) f ...

, with an egg donated by her sister Florence. The couple later adopted a daughter. In 2001, she purchased a 2,700-square-foot apartment in a

co-op A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...

building on

Park Avenue Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Av ...

for $3.5 million. In 2015, Corcoran purchased a penthouse unit on Fifth Avenue for $10 million. In 2019, for her 70th birthday, she held a mock funeral. Her hobbies include

skiing Skiing is the use of skis to glide on snow. Variations of purpose include basic transport, a recreational activity, or a competitive winter sport. Many types of competitive skiing events are recognized by the International Olympic Committee ( ...

and going to the beach. Corcoran has dyslexia and was labeled the 'dumb kid' by her teachers and classmates. According to Corcoran, the bullying "drove her to work harder and learn the skills she needed to succeed".

Selected bibliography

* (co-authored with

Bruce Littlefield Bruce Littlefield is an American author, businessman, actor, model, and TV contributor. He is the regarded as an American "lifestyle authority". He has been called a "Modern Day Erma Bombeck", a "Garage Sale Guru", the "Flea Market King" and is ...

) * * (co-authored with Bruce Littlefield)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Corcoran, Barbara 1949 births Living people American people of Irish descent 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American businesswomen 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesswomen 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American women writers American business writers Women business writers American columnists American consulting businesspeople American finance and investment writers American financial commentators American real estate businesspeople American television hosts American women chief executives Businesspeople from New Jersey Businesspeople from New York City Participants in American reality television series Leonia High School alumni People from Edgewater, New Jersey St. Cecilia High School (New Jersey) alumni St. Thomas Aquinas College alumni Television producers from New York City American women columnists Writers from New Jersey Writers from New York City American women non-fiction writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers American women television producers Women business and financial journalists American women television presenters Television producers from New Jersey