U.S. residential real estate market is improving, expert says at lecture

VIRGINIA BEACH

Prospective homebuyers are checking Internet sales listings more frequently and attending open houses in greater numbers, the founder and former owner of a major Manhattan brokerage firm said Tuesday.

Both are signs that the nation's residential real estate market is on the mend, said Barbara Corcoran, who launched her real estate business in 1973 with a $1,000 loan from her then-boyfriend.

"I believe the bottom of the market was last year," she said in an interview. Corcoran, who sold her firm for a reported $70 million, was at Regent University to deliver one of its Executive Leadership Series lectures.

Since leaving the Corcoran Group in late 2005, she has been buying four- and five-story residential buildings in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx. She also has a television-production company and serves as a TV commentator on residential real estate.

One indicator she watches, Corcoran said, is the traffic at open houses. "The mood has changed," and the wariness about buying a home is dissipating, she said.

However, financing a home purchase still can be a hurdle, and the reliance on federal lending programs may be here to stay, she said.

Corcoran, who grew up in a blue-collar community across the Hudson River from Manhattan, joked that she was "a straight D student." But her mother provided encouragement.

"She ran the household like a boot camp and was a wonderful motivator," said Corcoran, one of 10 children in the family.

Her business success, Corcoran said, was due largely to a combination of persistence and savvy marketing.

"I'm not religious, but I had faith that I would find a way" to overcome the hurdles that cropped up, she said. Strapped for cash during the real estate downturn in 1991, Corcoran said, she sold scores of apartments by listing them all for the same price and promoting by word of mouth.

"I sold 81 apartments in an hour flat and had 300 people waiting in line," she recalled. When she was paid, she used the cash to open two more offices.

Corcoran said she had no plans when she sold the Corcoran Group. "I had no idea how much I would miss it," she said.

However, selling the company provided financial stability, which she sometimes lacked. "I love going to bed at night knowing that I have enough cash in the bank," she said.

Tom Shean, (757) 446-2379, tom.shean@pilotonline.com