Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Skate to Where the Puck is Going

One of the greatest real estate booms in the last twenty years has to have been in Orange County, a big part of which is occupied by the Vietnamese community. Immigrants want to live near each other, and as they've gained prosperity (through their entrepreneurial culture, mostly) they've driven prices in Little Saigon and the surrounding areas ever higher. I've got my eyes open for the next great immigrant influx.

In the meantime, The V Train was in Bentonville, AR last week and noted that the not-exactly-new trend of companies stationing employees, either temporarily or permanently, near WalMart headquarters was yielding some interesting and predictable effects. Yes, a whole slew of new hotel developments and corporate housing have started to go up in this once small town. But there are still no big-city type amenities (restaurants open late, e.g.) catering to the army of business travelers that shows up there every Monday.

You could capitalize on this by moving there and opening a business yourself, or you could invest in some commercial real-estate and take advantage of the "pull-marketing" effect to attract lessees.

Since I don't know jack about Bentonville or commercial real-estate, you can have that little golden nugget for free.

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