When Barbara Corcoran first saw the New York City penthouse apartment she lives in now, she knew she had to have it.
It was 1992, and Corcoran had already founded her real estate company, The Corcoran Group, but to keep her business afloat, she had a part-time job delivering packages. One day, she delivered an envelope to a 4,600-square-foot penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue and she says she immediately thought she could see herself living there one day.
“It was a bad time in real estate, and I was delivering an envelope to this penthouse. I walked in and saw this green, lush terrace through the French doors, and said to the lady who let me in, ‘if you’re ever going to sell this, would you sell it to me?’,” Corcoran told The New York Times this month.
“She didn’t take me seriously. Years went by, I got notoriety. When she was ready to sell it, she called me.”
Corcoran and her husband, Bill Higgins, bought the 11-room duplex apartment in 2018 for $10 million and spent $3 million on renovations, according to CNBC. The apartment includes a greenhouse, a central selling point for Corcoran, a curved staircase, and a terrace with gorgeous views of the city.
Corcoran says she’s always had a knack for choosing properties to buy based on how they make her feel, even if it means purchasing sight unseen.
“That’s how I buy all of my homes. I have an emotional love affair with them. It’s romanticism. I walk in and I go, ‘I belong here.’ I dream about homes all the time — about my childhood home, country homes, lake homes where I’m swimming and they won’t let me come into the house. I mourn every move. I don’t like to leave homes; they’re loaded with memories,” she said.
In a 2020 interview with CNBC, the real estate mogul said that while she established a relationship with the apartment’s owner back in 1992, what mattered most was that she had seen herself living in the space.
“Relationships matter, but more importantly than that, dreaming matters. I envisioned myself living here,” she said.
In the same interview, Corcoran said that if she were to sell, she probably could have gotten $12 million for the penthouse apartment: “I over-improved it on purpose, and I’ll be living here for 10 years.”
“New York is a crazy market,” she said. “But one thing I know for sure is I will make a lot of money.”
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