Barbara Corcoran

Career

After graduating from 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, she co-founded The Corcoran-Simonè with her boyfriend, who lent her $1,000. She split from her boyfriend seven years later after he told her he was going to marry her secretary. 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.

In 2017, Corcoran's Shark Tank deal with The Comfy, an oversized wearable blanket, turned her $50,000 investment into $468 million. She was then bought out.

Formerly known as Barbara Corcoran Venture Partners, today Forefront Venture Partners invests in high-growth, revenue-generating, early-stage companies.

Personal life

Corcoran lives in Manhattan with her husband, Bill Higgins, a retired U.S. Navy captain and former FBI agent who participated in the Gulf War. The couple married in 1988. Corcoran gave birth to their son in 1994, via in vitro fertilization, 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 building on Park Avenue for $3.5 million. In 2015, she purchased a penthouse unit on Fifth Avenue for $10 million. In 2017, she purchased a double wide trailer home in California for $800,000.

In 2019, for her 70th birthday, she held a mock funeral.

Her hobbies include skiing and going to the beach.

She lost her home, the $800,000 double wide, in the Pacific Palisades wildfire, in January 2025.

Selected bibliography

If You Don't Have Big Breasts, Put Ribbons On Your Pigtails: and Other Lessons I Learned From My Mom; (aka "Use What You've Got"). New York City: Penguin. 2003. ISBN 1-59184-002-3. (co-authored with Bruce Littlefield)

Nextville: Amazing Places to Live Your Life. Springboard Press. 2008. ISBN 978-0-446-17827-3.

Shark Tales: How I Turned $1,000 into a Billion Dollar Business. SPortfolio Trade. 2011. ISBN 978-1-59184-418-1. (co-authored with Bruce Littlefield)