Quotes By Barbara Corcoran

No one tells salesmen what they can and can't do.

I built the business exactly the way my mother built and ran her family. I wanted a replication of the big, happy family I grew up in. I wanted happy people having fun.

I was well motivated. What I wanted to do was work for myself. I had twenty two jobs before I started my business at the age of twenty three and I didn't want one more boss telling me what to do. So I was motivated simply because I didn't want a boss.

The most expensive hobby a rich man could have is a boat, and the second most expensive hobby he could have is a very old house.

I hadn't learned to read by third grade, which wasn't unusual for some kids. I knew something was wrong because I couldn't see or understand the words the way the other kids did. I wasn't the least bit bothered - until I was sent back to the second-grade classroom for reading help after school.

My mother is an amazing woman. Not only did she manage the entire household, she noticed a gift in each of her kids and instilled confidence in all of us that that gift would take us wherever we wanted to go.

Don't you dare underestimate the power of your own instinct.

My husband had a very strong identity and was successful in his life. Thank God for that. There's no way I can control him. I wouldn't stay married to him if I felt I could. I can readily take my business personality into the home. But he forces me to be a partner rather than the boss.

If your house has been on the market for more than four months, take it off the market and re-list it in two months as 'new.'

In business, you're the Chief Salesman. Create a sense of demand, rather than waiting to have demand.

I got along with people very well at every job I had, people liked me and I liked them and I loved being on my feet.

I have a theory and I really believe it. I think your worst weakness can become your greatest single strength.

I've been in real estate for my whole life, I've been trying to sharpshoot the market with my investments, I'm never right. All you need to do is get near the bottom. That's good enough.

Every single thing I learned about marketing and building my business, I learned from my mom, and she had never been in the workforce. She just had great practical sense.

Especially if you're over 40, shortening the term of your loan to pay it off sooner could make you mortgage-free in retirement.

A funny thing happens in real estate. When it comes back, it comes back up like gangbusters.

The joy is in the getting there. The beginning years of starting your business, the camaraderie when you're in the pit together, are the best years of your life. So rather than being so focused on when you get big and powerful, if you can just get the juice out of that... don't miss it.

I had probably seven agents by the time I became a legitimate real estate broker.

I gave up years ago on the concept that you could actually have balance in your life, I think it's a phantom chase.

Whatever you got you have to accentuate. I ran my female card up and down the ladder my whole career, because I was in a man's world. It was worked by women but owned by men. I was the only female owner in my field at that time.

The most influential factor in selling a home is always price. Don't build 'wiggle room' into the asking price. There's a price war out there and you have to win it from the get-go.

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.

Most great entrepreneurs I know are nothing like the other kids. They're almost like tangent lines - those lines that seem to go nowhere. Nothing connects them, until they get out in the real world. Then they connect just fine.

I love myself. Anything that has my name I'm tickled to death.

If a house is priced appropriately, make a bid 10 percent below that amount.

It's rumored that doing well in real estate is to be able to close a deal. I did not find that to be the case for myself, I was probably the worst closer out there and I didn't find that was true of my top super stars either.

When you're a big money earner and your husband isn't, it makes you question how feminine you are. I felt I was less feminine than if I was a supporting wife, or a second fiddle, or 'Mrs. Higgins.'

I wanted to be a 150% entrepreneur and a 150% mom, and I found that I was having a very hard time doing both. I was about 75% and 75% - still better than 100%, but not what I was accustomed to at work.

I sat down and collected all of our eleven sales for the past six months and I added them all together and divided by eleven. I then took that average and presented it as the average price for a Manhattan apartment. The media ate it up.

Buyers decide in the first eight seconds of seeing a home if they're interested in buying it. Get out of your car, walk in their shoes and see what they see within the first eight seconds.