Real estate multimillionaire and television personality Barbara Corcoran tells Newsmax that the worst of the real estate downturn is behind us, and prospective home buyers should act now before prices come back “like gangbusters.”
Corcoran, one of the “sharks” on the ABC reality show “Shark Tank” and a real estate correspondent for NBC, also says now is the “absolute perfect time” to invest in real estate.
Corcoran founded her own real estate company, The Corcoran Group, with a $1,000 loan in 1973 and built it into the premier New York residential agency. She sold the company for $70 million in 2001.
Today she is a columnist for More magazine, The Daily Review and Redbook, and the author of the bestseller “If You Don't Have Big Breasts, Put Ribbons on Your Pigtails.”
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In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, Corcoran painted a rosy picture about the residential real estate market in America.
“I think the worst of the market is clearly behind us,” she says.
“The bottom of the market, that miraculous bottom of the market that every buyer waits for, to buy at the bottom, already happened. That was October of last year.
“Two out of three markets across the United States — high-end markets, low-end markets, everything in between — have already turned around. And what people don’t remember is that markets are very slow to unwind — prices come down, they keep coming down over a period of years — but when they recover they come up like gangbusters, and it takes your breath away how quickly they recover.
“And so I think anybody who is thinking of trading up to a bigger house, buying their first house or whatever, you would be absolutely out of your mind to wait much longer. Because it’s like a crowded restaurant — people love to buy in a crowd. And the minute you lose a house to the next buyer, that’s when the market sets itself on fire. And I think we’re poised for that right now.”
Asked if real estate is therefore a wise investment right now, Corcoran responds: “I think real estate is a wise investment always” because “almost everybody would prefer to own than to rent.
“In the past five or six years, for the people who bought at the height of the market, that was a bad financial mistake. But today with cheap money, low prices, steals of a deal, how would you possibly say that now wouldn’t be an absolute perfect time to make a good investment?”
Corcoran believes the glut of foreclosed properties on the market could turn out to be a positive factor for buyers.
“We are not through this foreclosure crisis,” she tells Newsmax.
“The help from the government has been intended well, and targeted as best they could, but it hasn’t really been that helpful except for first-time buyers.
“But frankly, we’re going to need those foreclosures to keep the market from running away like a train, because foreclosures are always priced without passion. They’re always good deals. And what you’re going to have then is those [foreclosed properties] flying off the shelves.
“So we’re going to be thankful for the foreclosures, versus cursing them as we’ve been doing for the last five years.”
Corcoran has advice for anyone trying to decide whether or not to walk away from a home.
“There’s a different kind of attitude today, and it’s different because the big guys, the big players, publicly have been doing it — walking away from obligations, ripping people off. And so it’s really changed the little guy’s attitude toward how morally wrong it is to walk away from a house.
“You need to put your family first, yourself second, and then your house is way down on that list.”
Corcoran, a much sought-after motivational speaker, acknowledges that many people today are not “happy or secure” in their jobs, but she has encouraging words regarding the job market as well.
“For so many people who have lost their jobs or won’t ask for the raise, or feel like they’re quietly threatened, day in day out, that their job is not secure, I say things are changing. You’re going to be able to get even, because when the market recovers the power goes into the hand of the employee versus the employer.”
Corcoran attributes her great success to a gift for hiring “great people” and doing everything she could for them to make sure they succeeded.
She also believes the biggest difference between successful and unsuccessful people is that the successful ones spend a “lot less time feeling sorry for themselves” after a failure and move immediately on to the next challenge instead.
To be successful, she adds, you have to be “fabulous at failing first.
“The truth is, if you’re great at failure, you’re going to be a winner in life.”
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