  The electronic and magnetic properties of transition metal dichalcogenides
are known to be extremely sensitive to their structure. In this paper we study
the effect of structure on the electronic and magnetic properties of mono- and
bilayer $VSe_2$ films grown using molecular beam epitaxy. $VSe_2$ has recently
attracted much attention due to reports of emergent ferromagnetism in the 2D
limit. To understand this important compound, high quality 1T and distorted 1T
films were grown at temperatures of 200 $^\text{o}$C and 450 $^\text{o}$C
respectively and studied using 4K Scanning Tunneling Microscopy/Spectroscopy.
The measured density of states and the charge density wave (CDW) patterns were
compared to band structure and phonon dispersion calculations. Films in the 1T
phase reveal different CDW patterns in the first layer compared to the second.
Interestingly, we find the second layer of the 1T-film shows a CDW pattern with
4a $\times$ 4a periodicity which is the 2D version of the bulk CDW observed in
this compound. Our phonon dispersion calculations confirm the presence of a
soft phonon at the correct wavevector that leads to this CDW. In contrast, the
first layer of distorted 1T phase films shows a strong stripe feature with
varying periodicities, while the second layer displays no observable CDW
pattern. Finally, we find that the monolayer 1T $VSe_2$ film is weakly
ferromagnetic, with ~ $3.5 {\mu}_B$ per unit similar to previous reports.
