Barbara Corcoran says she made $1 million in a day selling apartments nobody wanted: I 'created a buying frenzy’

Some risks travel astatine a price. Others tin wage disconnected handsomely — a acquisition Barbara Corcoran knows well.

In a caller TikTok video, the co-star of ABC's "Shark Tank" told her followers astir a important infinitesimal successful her existent property career, erstwhile she was astatine hazard of bankruptcy. The problem: Her Manhattan-based existent property institution The Corcoran Group owned 88 bare "terrible apartments" that "nobody wanted" to buy.

With specified precocious stakes, Corcoran felt determination was small to suffer — truthful she concocted a risky selling strategy to merchantability the units.

She decided to big a 24-hour merchantability wherever each the apartments — careless of neighborhood, size and prime — would beryllium priced the same. She dispersed the announcement solely done connection of mouth, creating the illusion that the apartments were desirable not due to the fact that they were luxurious, but due to the fact that everyone wanted one.

"[I said] bring lone your champion customer, due to the fact that there's not capable to spell around," Corcoran said. "The time of the sale, I had 150 radical waiting successful enactment for those 88 apartments. It created a buying frenzy."

Every flat sold, putting "$1 cardinal successful commissions close successful my pocket" successful a azygous day, she added.

That was backmost successful 1991. More than 3 decades later, the acquisition inactive matters: "Everybody wants what everybody wants, but cipher wants what cipher wants," Corcoran said.

Today's businesses and influencers usage akin tactics erstwhile flying archetypal class, staying successful luxury hotels oregon adjacent signing up for recognition cards that connection circumstantial perks. High request and debased quantity tin marque products, services oregon events look exclusive, careless of their quality.

Corcoran often deployed non-traditional ideas to enactment competitory successful a cutthroat marketplace during her 28 years owning The Corcoran Group, which she started astatine property 23 with a $1,000 indebtedness from her then-boyfriend.

"I was competing with the aged boys' web and they were dormant astatine the wheel," Corcoran said connected a December podcast occurrence of "The Diary of a CEO hosted by Steven Bartlett." "They did the aforesaid aged happening and they did it the aged aforesaid way. ... I would deliberation of the top bull---- to make publicity each time of the week."

A decennary aft avoiding bankruptcy by unloading those 88 apartments, Corcoran sold her institution to existent property institution NRT for $66 million. The mogul admitted to struggling with impostor syndrome, and said she felt similar "an implicit fraud" aft selling her company, she wrote connected Instagram successful 2020.

These days, she says that self-doubt — paired with the luck of accidental — helps her stay astatine the apical of her crippled astatine property 73.

"Thank God, you uncertainty yourself, due to the fact that the 1 happening that I person learned that is existent of each azygous idiosyncratic who is exceptional successful immoderate they are doing is self-doubt," Corcoran said connected a 2020 occurrence of her podcast "888-Barbara." "Without it, you go big-headed, arrogant, and you're conscionable waiting for the timepiece to marque you autumn connected your feet."

Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cablegram rights to "Shark Tank."

Get CNBC's free Warren Buffett Guide to Investing, which distills the billionaire's No. 1 champion portion of proposal for regular investors, do's and don'ts, and 3 cardinal investing principles into a wide and elemental guidebook.

Sign up now: Get smarter astir your wealth and vocation with our play newsletter