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Buy Ugly Profit Pretty:Finding Overlooked Deals,Negotiating Long Escrow & Forcing Value w/ Smart Way

By November 3, 2025Real Estate Pros Show

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Show Summary

In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Kristen interviews Matt Vasicek, a seasoned real estate investor and entrepreneur. They discuss Matt’s journey from being an appraiser to becoming a successful investor, the current state of the real estate market, and the appeal of midterm rentals. Matt shares insights on investment strategies, the importance of patience, and tips for identifying lucrative properties. The conversation highlights the evolving landscape of real estate investing and offers valuable advice for both new and experienced investors.

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    Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

    Matt Vasicek (00:00)
    But they’re right on the golf course and I do 30, 60, 90, 120, 180 day terms with people and never anything shorter than a month. it’s really quality occupants and they pay a premium.

    It’s a lot of paperwork at least, right? But I don’t care. ⁓ I like it a lot. So it’s a hybrid of ⁓ regular long-term buy and hold, which I’ve done for years and years, and short-term. It’s a hybridization of those. They’re furnished mid-term rentals. that’s what they are. And it’s a good… ⁓

    market because you can have it sometimes, maybe even 30 40 percent a year, but the wear and tear is just minimal compared to the people moving their stuff in and out every 6 or 12 months.

    Kristen (00:49)
    Right.

    Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m Kristen and I’m here with Matt Vasicek. He is a real estate investor and entrepreneur. We’re going to get all into midterm rentals, investing out of state and a lot more. So thanks for being here, Matt.

    Matt Vasicek (02:45)
    Sure, yeah, thanks for having me.

    Kristen (02:48)
    So you’ve done a lot in this space or you’re doing a lot in this space. You have a lot of different plates spinning. ⁓ You kind of got into this as an appraiser. Can you talk to us about how you got into this industry?

    Matt Vasicek (03:00)
    I had a friend who was an appraiser during a refinance boom back in late 90s. I had owned a house for a few years by this point and I thought, well…

    That sounds kind like a fun industry and I’ve enjoyed being a homeowner more than I did a renter and I thought why not just kind of get into real estate. we knew a couple people in lending and a couple realtors that seemed like they were having a decent life. So I thought at least get in on a tangent of real estate. right away I was like, okay, this is cool. Then I

    to learn how things really work and how to buy right because of knowing what things are worth.

    Kristen (03:46)
    Mm-hmm.

    Matt Vasicek (03:47)
    ⁓

    So, yeah, but honestly it really started with the appraisal practice, which I still have, of course.

    Kristen (03:54)
    Yeah, and talk a little bit more about that because I’m sure that’s helped you as an investor so much, be able to identify hidden gems and all that. Can you talk about just your appraising experience, how that’s been?

    Matt Vasicek (04:06)
    Yeah, it’s been an interesting journey. like everybody else, just started. worked for somebody else, and they trained me. I learned pretty quickly that it was going to be important to specialize, because there’s a lot of, ⁓ anybody can do the cookie cutter work right. So I began to focus on that.

    unique and luxury properties as soon as I could, ⁓ reviewing other people’s work as soon as I could. the more stranger, the stranger stuff I did, the more I could see that there were some little pockets of the industry where you could find, like you said, find value in.

    certain hidden gems and I

    more of a consultant before I was an investor. had friends who would say, hey, can you tell me about this? What do think the rent is on this property? And so on and so forth. So investing kind of happened on accident after I would help these friends of mine decide whether or to buy a house on these properties. And I’m like, well, they’re doing pretty well. I don’t have to buy my own properties. So that was the…

    kind of the beginning of everything. maybe after a few years of appraising, I took my swing at my first investment property and that was it. It’s been 24, 25 years now.

    Kristen (06:23)
    Wow.

    Awesome. Yeah, and I mean, with the appraising business, I mean, you know all about what loans you qualify for and what markets are hot. I mean, I feel like that’s such a natural progression to go into investing after that.

    Matt Vasicek (06:42)
    Well, yeah, we added, over the years, wife and I added a mortgage brokerage too because part of it was, you know, we can kind of get the best pricing for our own loans, but the value that we bring to the investors is that, you know, we have so many different options from the lending side. Obviously, there’s a lot of the traditional things. We don’t do any of the, we do rehab stuff, but not the kind of, but.

    stuff you guys do with 100 % financing. But then we were kind of early adopters of the DSCR programs and things like that. yeah, it’s kind of been a, an investor and always looking for ways to acquire properties where you don’t always go in with your 20 % down and you’re by the tenant and get a property manager has always been the trick, you know.

    That was also sort of a progress out of being an investor, trying to get into the financing part of it help other people too. yeah, there’s just a lot of different, got a couple of little things back here, but yeah, we have like seven or eight different licenses in various states. yeah, basically we just do CPE all year long. yeah, it’s been interesting.

    Kristen (07:54)
    Thank

    Nice.

    Matt Vasicek (08:11)
    kind of a transformation from one thing to four or five different things now.

    Kristen (08:16)
    Yeah,

    definitely. with your own investment portfolio, what markets are you looking at right now? What are kind of the hot markets that you’re interested in?

    Matt Vasicek (08:24)
    Well, I like, I love Phoenix. It’s just got so much, now 25 years ago there wasn’t much here. mean it was, know, vacation. People come here for vacation and like medical treatments, you know. ⁓ But it’s grown so much with the chip manufacturers and you name it. There’s just so much industry here now that’s not.

    so related to the travel and it’s not a boom and bust town like it probably was fifty years ago.

    I like it here. I’ve been in and out of the Austin market, more of the periphery of Austin, Elgin if you’ve ever heard of that little town. Spokane, Washington has been great. Denver has come and gone from, you know,

    have a good value but Phoenix just has so much ⁓ opportunity still because of how big it is and just how diverse the

    marketplaces, ultra luxury to, know, big starter homes and everything in between. it’s good here. I’ve looked at it. I hate to say dabble, but I looked around and I’ll call it Florida before and it was too far away for me. Atlanta area was another one, but I decided to stay on the West Coast. Washington State is great. And then Texas is.

    Kristen (10:21)
    Right.

    Matt Vasicek (10:32)
    all right to get texas and taxes that’s the trick there is the property taxes ⁓ but then they all have their own little idiosyncrasies but as far as right here low property taxes ⁓ easy transactions ⁓ title agencies are very sophisticated ⁓ and ⁓ realtors are which I am also a realtor ⁓

    Kristen (10:48)
    the end.

    Matt Vasicek (11:02)
    Mostly really professional, know, so there’s not a whole lot of chasters. Or they stand out if they’re there. yeah, it’s a healthy market right here.

    Kristen (11:08)
    Yeah.

    Yeah, I mean, you’re a realtor, you’re mortgage broker, an investor, a preser, like you have such good, well-rounded experience. I would imagine your portfolio is very impressive, the stuff that you choose to invest in. I know that you’re big on the midterm rentals right now. Can you talk about that opportunity and why that’s appealing to you?

    Matt Vasicek (11:35)
    Well, yeah, the Airbnb thing has been, you know, I think people thought it was easy money. ⁓

    But it’s really hard going. I imagine I’ve never done a two, three night rental, a place where you’re going, they’re cleaning in and having all the expense. I have some friends who are, that’s their whole thing. They have seven or eight of those properties and they just manage them from afar and they do great, but they had ⁓ to buy the properties just right so that they don’t have huge exposure on mortgages or whatever. ⁓ But yeah, for me.

    We’ve got this particular… you have to buy just the right property.

    our best ones. I waited 13 years to buy the darn thing because I wanted to come on the market, there are these places on this one golf course here that I just had my eye on forever and ever. And I finally got into this development like three years ago. Rehab, these time capsule places that were built in mid-70s and looked like our grandparents.

    places we were little kids.

    But they’re right on the golf course and I do 30, 60, 90, 120, 180 day terms with people and never anything shorter than a month. it’s really quality occupants and they pay a premium.

    It’s a lot of paperwork at least, right? But I don’t care. ⁓ I like it a lot. So it’s a hybrid of ⁓ regular long-term buy and hold, which I’ve done for years and years, and short-term. It’s a hybridization of those. They’re furnished mid-term rentals. that’s what they are. And it’s a good… ⁓

    market because you can have it sometimes, maybe even 30 40 percent a year, but the wear and tear is just minimal compared to the people moving their stuff in and out every 6 or 12 months.

    Kristen (13:33)
    Right.

    Matt Vasicek (13:44)
    yeah, it’s good. It’s a good job. It’s a further patient investor though.

    Kristen (13:49)
    Yeah, I imagine. But it does seem like the best of kind of all worlds because I mean, every type of rental has its challenges. You can’t get out without any challenges. But yeah, I mean, you have the income of 30 plus days. But yeah, you don’t fall to kind of the needing to book a bunch of reservations. And that can, I’m sure, get very stressful.

    Matt Vasicek (14:15)
    that

    it’s gotta be horrible. you know, have, our cleaners go there, they’re there the second somebody gets out, you know, and we go in and we do all the sterilization and stuff. And then I don’t have to go back to the property sometimes for, you know, months, months and months. And it’s just a, it’s really, it’s a, I never thought much about, well, it didn’t exist when I started doing this, but. ⁓

    as compared to what I see people go through with the real short-term metals and compared to what I know about longer-term metals it’s a cool market, a cool segment of the market for me.

    Kristen (14:56)
    Yeah, definitely. Will you fit in the game? I’m

    sorry?

    Matt Vasicek (15:42)
    I said if

    I ever get trouble around here, it’s a decent doghouse for me to go to. They’re big, for a couple days. ⁓

    Kristen (15:46)
    Right. Exactly.

    Well, you’ve been in the game for a really long time, so I’m sure you’ve seen all the market ups and downs. What’s your perspective of kind of where we’re at right now?

    Matt Vasicek (16:00)
    Well, I’m glad that we’re… I think we got through the worst of…

    times right now. ⁓ I’ve been doing this for really, really long time. It feels like longer than it really is, but this last three plus years has been the most consistently.

    depressing market. The interest rates haven’t helped. They went too low too fast back in 2021 and then the swing back was horrible. So

    got that mentality that if I don’t have a 2.25 % mortgage, I’m not going to get a mortgage. And now they’re like, okay, I’ve got my 2.25 % mortgage and I’ve got tons of credit card debt at 29%. So 5.9 doesn’t look too bad right now. So I think we got

    I think we’re through the trough and I feel it from the mortgage applications that we get in. I’ve got buyers calling me from buyers and sellers for my realty practice that I’ve been on the sidelines for a while, especially buyers. And then the appraisal volume has changed a lot for the good.

    I only do almost exclusively luxury and ultra luxury appraisals now, as far as residential stuff goes. And that part of the market is a good indicator of how things are everywhere else. it’s showing big pickup again. It’s only been kind of a drag for about a year. The rest of the market’s longer than that.

    luxury really really high end of the market is moving.

    Kristen (17:55)
    Yeah, and each state, each county, region has kind of its own market. It sounds like Phoenix is a great place to invest right now. ⁓ I know that it’s becoming kind of a hotspot with all the golf tournaments and stuff like that. People travel over there. Yeah. Yeah.

    Matt Vasicek (17:56)
    Here we go.

    way.

    ⁓ yeah.

    And summer can be rough anyway because it’s just hot. People don’t want to be shopping in houses when it’s 110 degrees out. But that’s the time to buy them because nobody else is out looking. ⁓ But yeah, you’re right. We have a huge swath of the city here that’s…

    caters to that type of market. Some towns, some cities have, like I also do work in Denver. I mean, as an appraiser, still licensing Colorado, we do.

    Kristen (18:38)
    Right.

    Matt Vasicek (18:47)
    mortgages in arizona colorado colorado’s got a couple of pockets of the luxury market i’m talking about the denver area i’m talking about aspen which is itself just a whole luxury market but uh… huge swath of lamb that’s basically that’s all it is so yeah you’re right about the golfers the baseball players whoever it is uh… they kinda

    Kristen (19:00)
    rain.

    Yeah.

    Matt Vasicek (19:15)
    kind of like the barometer of where the rest of the market’s headed.

    Kristen (19:18)
    Absolutely.

    Well, I mean, yeah, that’s so cool. it’s it’s I like hearing optimism about the market. I do think we’re in a pretty good buyer’s market right now for sure. Yeah.

    Matt Vasicek (19:28)
    three months and he wanted to talk to me. I was like, don’t know what’s good about the summer.

    Kristen (19:36)
    I would love to hear some of your tips to kind of wrap this up, like maybe some tips on what you look for in your investment properties and kind of what makes you excited.

    Matt Vasicek (19:49)
    Well, probably like a lot of people, you know, you want to look for the…

    for the stuff that’s overlooked. Things that have been on the market way too long, usually it’s a matter of overpricing at the beginning. ⁓ Sometimes people, I think, list too high because they are just uninformed. Sometimes they might be desperate and they need to sell for that price and they’re never going to get it if that’s too bad. the places where I find opportunity are these long exposure properties where at some point the levy has to break.

    I mean, and there’s other stuff too where cosmetics in residential properties, as long as there’s no structural stuff or mold or roof issues, mean, don’t know, the uglier the better because we don’t sell, I don’t know.

    I sell opportunity and data analysis. I don’t sell the pretty carpet and the pretty kitchen. You can build a pretty carpet and a pretty kitchen. yeah, buy them ugly and sometimes too, you know, weird wrinkles that people, a seller might have some reason they want to have a long escrow.

    You can really get negotiating power. Whatever the reason is, they want to have to move their stuff across country and they don’t want to close for 90 or 120 days.

    So what? Pay a little bit extra to lock your loan longer than normal. But you would way more than make up for it by paying a lower price for the property. just find the unusual situations and always make money when you buy. You get your money when you sell it, but you only make your money when you buy. And just be patient and find that.

    find the weird ones, guess. I say weird, not too weird. You don’t want a one bedroom house where everybody else has five bedrooms, you’ll find the stuff that just looks like damaged goods on the market, but it’s really not. That’s the trick.

    Kristen (21:53)
    Yeah. Not too good, yeah.

    Yeah, definitely. I think you highlighted a really important thing is patience. I think a lot of people are in a hurry to make money, especially when they’re first starting out, but definitely worth it to wait and analyze the market and hop in when you’re really ready.

    Matt Vasicek (22:21)
    Yeah, right. if you don’t be more patient the less you know about the market, you know, like you can see a fix and flip from a mile away if you know what you’re looking for. But if you have the other 500 people walk past it, then you think, wow, I’m going to make a thing or not. So either be the first one there or really be patient.

    do it a different

    Kristen (22:53)
    Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think you’ve given some really good advice, good practical advice for people. Tell everyone where to find you and how to work with you in all these various industries that you’re in.

    Matt Vasicek (23:05)
    yeah, well, I’m, we’re, like I said, we deal in, know.

    mortgage industry in Colorado and Arizona, the appraisal and realty industry here in Arizona, can I get my phone number and stuff? Does it matter? Yeah, my direct number is 480-529-0869. I have ⁓ a couple of websites. One is my first name, M-A-T-T, at M-A-T-T-V-A-S-I-C-E-K dot com, [email protected]. I’m sorry.

    That’s my email address. But mattvasicek.com is my website. Another website is appraiserphx.com. That’s more of a website that I use for dealing with…

    the state attorneys and people like that but it talks about all the appraisal aspects. And then our mortgage brokerage is at expertmortgagefinancing.com because we couldn’t find a longer website name. ⁓ But yeah, that’s how to get a hold of us. And yeah, I love to help people. Like I said, the thing I know about.

    Kristen (24:11)
    you

    Matt Vasicek (24:21)
    that one place that we find that can really help people is analyzing transactions just really, really, really fast. What’s the rent? are all the costs? And then what are the costs of the financing of everything else? So yeah, but the speed. Be quick or be dead, right? And we, I, so, efficiency in analyzing the transaction.

    Kristen (24:30)
    you

    Okay.

    Amazing. Well, thank you so much for being here, Matt.

    Matt Vasicek (24:54)
    Okay, well thank you for having me.

    Kristen (24:57)
    And thank you everyone for listening. Hope you got some great inspiration for your own business and some advice that maybe you can look at things a little bit differently. And please reach out to Matt. He’s got a lot to offer. He’s in a lot of different areas where he can help. So thank you everyone for listening and we’ll see you next time. Bye.

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