By Kim Parmon, January 13, 2022
It’s not often people get to hold a piece of local history, but Marisol & Jacob have just found their opportunity. Marisol is a young woman of color who invests in real estate in the Portland area. Imagine her surprise when the beautiful home she just purchased was originally purchased by Betty Fegan-Smith. Who is that you’re probably wondering? Much like Marisol, Fegan-Smith was a black real estate investor. She began slowly building her real estate portfolio in Portland in the 1950s when very few families of color could afford to purchase homes.
Her love of real estate started from a young age when she reimagined and remodeled her mother’s bathroom after her mother’s friend came to their house to brag about their new bathroom. Fegan-Smith was determined to give her mother a beautiful bathroom and spent her college fund to give her the bathroom of her dreams. She oversaw the project from start to finish, and this is where her love for homes began to bloom.
After marrying her husband in 1948, Fegan-Smith moved to Portland where she used her strong business acumen (attributed to her father), to help local organizations such as Albina Art Center, as a way of establishing herself.
In the late ‘60s, her passion and entrepreneurial spirit brought her an opportunity to co-own the first black retail store in Portland, Mr. B and the Cinnamon Tree. Seeing the low-cost property in the area, she began purchasing, remodeling, and building her rental portfolio, but her entrepreneurship didn’t stop there. 
Following in the footsteps of her sister, she opened and successfully operated a childcare center, Jeanette Fegan School of Early Learning, watching generations of children grow up in NE Portland.
While not purchasing the Smith family’s original home, Marisol & Jacob know they have some big shoes to fill to live up to a community legend. To honor Fegan-Smith’s legacy and memory, they plan to place a plaque on the home in honor of her once some remodeling of their own is finished.
Kim Parmon
Principal Broker | Earth Advantage Certified | OR
She/Her
Kim Parmon
Principal Broker
Lead Listing Agent
Earth Advantage Certified | OR
kim@livingroomre.com
Oregon is the fifth state that Kim has called home in her life, and this one is sticking! After moving multiple times in her childhood, Kim fully understands how empowering homeownership and having roots is. She loves waking up every day in this beautiful place and wants everyone to experience what it feels like to live in their dream home.
As a kid, Kim spent her free time wandering through open houses and exploring construction sites for the fun of it. After careers in the professional ballroom dance world, the entertainment industry, and the service industry, Kim stumbled into real estate as both a passion and a profession through the purchase of her first bungalow. After renovating it with her husband and selling it for enough of a profit to pay off their debt as well as buy a new house to live in, everything clicked: she decided to get her real estate license and help her community experience the emotional and financial benefits of homeownership.
Kim put down roots in Portland in 2015 and has cultivated a referrals-based business throughout the years. She understands that real estate is a service and the experience she gives her clients is first-rate. She works hard to anticipate needs. She is responsive, thorough, empathic, and a skilled negotiator who enjoys market analytics and strategy as much as she enjoys connecting with her clients. Her ethics and reputation are the cornerstones of her business and the happiness of her clients is the yardstick that she measures success against.
Kim merged her business with the best agents in Portland at the beginning of 2022, which has allowed her to give her clients more resources, more advocacy, and a top-notch real estate experience. She is honored to be a part of her incredible team and feels lucky to go to work every day.
In her free time, you'll find Kim enjoying lazy evenings by the fire with her husband, daughter, and rescue dogs. She loves dancing, live music, exploring all of the beautiful places around us in the PNW, enjoying a cider and a good meal with friends, and browsing Powell's for a great new book.
Andee Ziegler
Licensed Listing Team Operations Manager
andee@livingroomre.com
Loving where you live will change your life. Everyone deserves that joy. For me, real estate has been a way of nurturing my community and doing what I can to help people find stability, grow generational wealth, and create a little space of their own in the world.
For 15 years I found the most joy in helping first-time homebuyers, guiding my peers through their first major investment and dreaming up what home means for them. I’ve done restoration work on homes from a variety of eras, 1894 Victorian farmhouse to classic 1950’s ranch. I enjoy empowering new homeowners with the knowledge I’ve garnered over the years, from systems to finishes.
In 2022 I joined forces with some of the best realtors in the biz and shifted my focus to operation management for listings. This welcome change opened up space in my life: more cake, less pants.
Andee Zeigler | Licensed Listing Team Operations Manager | andee@livingroomre.com
Jessica LeDoux | Lead Buyer Agent | Broker Licensed in Oregon | jessica@livingroomre.com
Karim Alaeddine | Operations | Principal Broker Licensed in Oregon | karim@livingroomre.com
Jenessa VanZutphen | Buyer Operations Manager | Licensed in Oregon | jenessa@livingroomre.com
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- T: 503-438-5101
- kim@livingroomre.com
