We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Matthew & Alicia Ellison. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Matthew & Alicia below.

Matthew & Alicia , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

When it comes to the biggest risk either of us taken I think we can both agree it was joining the Navy, and from that point forward throughout moments in our lives we have continuously taken risks we weren’t sure we should. For the both of us leaving and joining the Navy was something no one expected us to do. I am the child of Cuban immigrants and grew up appreciating everything and my husband was born and raised in Alabama and was also raised with minimal and to appreciate all thing. When my husband joined I can confirm that his risks began immediately with his first two tours in Iraq with the Army. While I on the other hand joined and within 6 months was already getting ready to deploy. Since then we both continued to take risks even in our personal lives. We met, got married, fast forward and we have 2 kids and 8 years later we take another risk and I leave the Navy. Talk about scary, leaving job security isn’t always the easiest but I knew it was time and decided I wanted to follow my childhood dream of teaching Elementary Education… so I did. Its been a wonderful 4 years. I have seen how I can truly mold and better my students lives from such an early age. For us this was a huge risk but we felt we could make it work, shortly after this we decided we wanted to make our dream come true of owning our beach home that my husband promised me 10 years ago on our first weekend get away. What a way to cash in on a promise huh? Well here we are looking for a home, taking major risks, we have been paying off debt and being careful with our money and doing all the things we thought were all the right steps so we could make this dream a reality and we decided to finally start consulting our real options, could you believe it we could actually make this a reality?! But it would be a lot of blood, sweat and tears, aside from our hard work that we were already putting in. We started talking to realtors, come to find out not only was this a big risk but financially pushing our limits and a needle and a haystack. We wanted a house or condo that felt like a house, we wanted it beach front, we wanted it walk out to the beach, ground floor, we didn’t want to have to walk around the building to get to the water, we didn’t want a lobby or a hassle with parking. This was all so important for us. Our budget??? Not anything that qualified for all the above mentioned. So now we got to searching, we find the perfect property that check all the blocks, its a condo, we can settle for that, I am as grateful as they come and my husband just wants me happy. So now we find out every penny of financing goes into this and not a single bank in all of Panama City Beach or any other area will finance us… except one. After an extension and almost everything we had, we took the biggest financial risk of all and hope that what we have, others will want to share and visit as well. Our team of people helping us making our dream possible was by far the best anyone could ask for. Dean at the First Bank, My realtors Lana Parks and DJ Villareal in Destin were amazing with inspections and traveling to PCB for me. Now we are ready for renters! We have made our home absolutely the best place we could! We absolutely love being welcoming hosts for our adult guests and even our children guests. We think everyone should feel special when they stay with us. It warms my heart personally to manage our home ourselves because we get to know the families that rent from us and we build personal relationships with them and I hope through the years we will see their families grow and flourish! We also hope this risk will be something that our children will be able to look back on and see that we tried to give to them many things including memories, stability, but mostly love. That this risk will be the foundation of moments that they never forget and stories that they will carry with them and tell the next generations of us.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

We own Vista Mar PCB a Vacation Rental Home. We love to provide an escape for others to be able to enjoy a peaceful moment in a world full of chaos. We are most proud of the way our guests feel when staying with us. We have been called “a breath of fresh air hosts” and it means the world when guests who stay with us know that they are truly appreciated for choosing us. They aren’t just a number of the week, we are truly humbled when we share our home with others who treat it like they love it and care for it.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

Me and my husband met after both coming back from deployments. He had just returned from his second tour in Iraq and I had just returned from the Bush’s first deployment. We collided before we came together but the rest is 10 years in the making.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

We used the equity of our first home to get a line of credit and use it to be able to fund the down payment on our second home including using some of our savings for the rest of closing.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.vistamarpcb.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/vistamarpcb
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/vistamarpcb
• Other: www.airbnb.com/h/vistamarpcb www.vrbo.com/3015299

Image Credits
Jazmin Johnson Photography Emerald Coast Bridges Photography