Blog Stories Crazy Friends and Lake Houses

Crazy Friends and Lake Houses

By Kim Parmon, September 21, 2020

I love being part of the culture of Living Room Realty.  It really is a different kind of brokerage, full of like-minded, socially responsible agents.  I have learned a lot from the amazing agents here, and I have also made some great friends.

One such friend is rock star agent extraordinaire, Melissa Dorman.  Melissa and I bonded right away over our investment experience, interest in the FIRE movement, and and general hustle.  We tended to gravitate towards each other at company parties and our partners made each other laugh.  During a socially distanced happy hour in my front yard, I brought up a little vacation home that I had seen pop up.  I’d been looking into the Fishhawk Lake community for awhile and it had piqued my interest.  Fishhawk Lake is about an hour and a half outside of Portland and it is filled with quaint cabins and surrounded by nature.  It’s relatively unknown and feels like a throwback to a bygone era (you know, the one without wifi). I was pretty charmed by it.

With all travel plans on hold for the foreseeable future, my husband and I often talked about how nice it would be to have a little getaway spot.  I always balanced this desire with my innate frugality, though.  The voice in the back of my head whispered “it’s a bad idea to buy a house you can only use twice a month.”  I’d seen a little cabin pop up that looked like the perfect spot to relax and the price was amazing, but I didn’t want to take on the mortgage alone.  Just wasn’t meant to be, I guess!

Well, Melissa and I are cut from the same cloth.  Like me, she has a high risk tolerance (read: she’s a gambler!).  I told her why I liked this property, what I’d seen in the comps, and what the numbers looked like.  I told her about my dream of having a little getaway where I could spend quality time with my family.  Honestly, I didn’t think anything of it, I was just wistfully talking.  Well, she asked to see the listing and ran some quick calculations of her own.  She had also been looking for a little vacation spot but nothing had been working out for her.  Why didn’t we do this together?  That way, we could both use the cabin a couple of times a month and we wouldn’t feel like we were biting off more than we could chew alone.  Within fifteen minutes, we had an offer submitted!

The transaction had many challenges.  At times, it seemed like we would never get to the finish line.  However, on Friday, we finally made it to closing!  My lifelong dream of having my own little vacation spot has now been fulfilled, all thanks to having a friend who is just as crazy as I am who is willing to take this leap with me.  Thanks, Melissa!

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

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