Barbara Ann Corcoran (born March 10, 1949 in Edgewater, New Jersey) is an American businesswoman, investor, speaker, consultant, syndicated columnist, author, and television personality. As a television personality, she is a "Shark" investor on ABC's Shark Tank.

Biography

She graduated from St. Thomas Aquinas College with a degree in education in 1971. After graduation, she taught school for a year, but soon moved on working various jobs including a side job renting apartments in New York City. She wanted to be her own boss, and in 1973 co-founded a real estate business called The Corcoran Group with her boyfriend, who fronted a $1,000 loan (approximately $5,420, inflation-adjusted, 2016). In the mid-1970s she also began publishing The Corcoran Report on real estate data trends in New York City.

In 2001, Corcoran sold her business to NRT Incorporated for $66 million. She is also a "Shark" investor on ABC's Shark Tank, and is invested in more than twenty businesses to date.

In September 2017 Corcoran was announced as a contestant for season 25 of Dancing with the Stars, where she was partnered with Keo Motsepe. She is the third Shark Tank "shark""?after Mark Cuban and Robert Herjavec"?to take part. Corcoran and Motsepe were the first couple eliminated on September 25, 2017.

Business career

Real estate commentator

Barbara is a columnist for More Magazine, The Daily Review, and Redbook, has written several books, and has been featured in various shows such as Larry King Live. She has been a guest business speaker at various real estate events and is a business consultant via her consulting and television production business, Barbara Corcoran Inc. She is also the real estate contributor to NBC's Today show, hosts The Millionaire Broker with Barbara Corcoran on CNBC, and writes a weekly column in the New York Daily News.

Shark Tank

Corcoran has been an investor on ABC's three-time Emmy award winning show Shark Tank for nine seasons. She has made a total of 52 deals (including tandem ventures) on the show, the largest being with the company Coverplay for $350,000. Her average investment size is $103,113 and the median amount of her investments are $75,000. On air, Corcoran has invested over $5.4 million dollars.

Personal life

Corcoran resides in Manhattan with her second husband, Bill Higgins, a retired Navy captain from the Persian Gulf War and former F.B.I. agent; they married in 1988. Her younger sister donated her egg, and through in-vitro fertilization, Barbara gave birth to a son, Tom. The couple later adopted daughter Kate.

On the April 18, 2014 episode of Shark Tank, Corcoran said one of her children is a seven-year-old adopted daughter, and has also said her first is a son in his 20s, Tom Corcoran. In season 5 episode 26 of Shark Tank, which aired April 25, 2014, Corcoran shares that her son attended an Ivy League school. On season 8, Barbara said her daughter Katie has learning disabilities.

Selected works

• 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 : Penguin, 2003. (co-authored with Bruce Littlefield)
• Nextville: Amazing Places to Live Your Life, Springboard Press, 2008.
• Shark Tales: How I Turned $1,000 into a Billion Dollar Business, SPortfolio Trade, 2011. (co-authored with Bruce Littlefield)

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