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Jeff Collins has a doctorate in economics.

He also headed the Center for Business & Economic Research at the University of Arkansas' Sam M. Walton College of Business. He was on the Governor's Council of Economic Advisers. He is a partner in Streetsmart Data Services LLC of Fayetteville, which produces quarterly reports on real estate markets for sections of Arkansas.

Now he's bankrupt. Collins filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection on Sept. 16, listing just over $240,000 in assets and $10.3 million in debts. Most of the debts are held by unsecured creditors.

Collins, with investments in nearly 150 apartments, thought he had considered and planned for the worst-case scenario in the northwest Arkansas real estate market. He hadn't.

Collins said he never dreamed that one of his partners would abandon a $10 million-plus project in 2006, leaving Collins to burn through his cash just as the real estate market began to collapse.

"It's a daunting thought to realize at my age you're starting over," said Collins, who, with a goatee and a Boston Red Sox hat, looks younger than 46. "You're at zero, which is essentially what bankruptcy is. You don't keep much."

Collins began to invest in the real estate market in 2002, but he traces the start of his financial troubles to the collapse of a 30-acre project on State Highway 12 in Bentonville that would have featured 260 apartments and commercial spaces.

Collins had owned 40 percent of the project, while his partner, Hollis Cunningham of Olathe, Kan., owned the rest. Cunningham, who had years of construction experience, was the general contractor.

The former partners see the project's failure differently.

Collins said Cunningham's crews weren't hustling fast enough to prepare the site for construction as other apartment complexes were hitting the market.

The project was derailed when Cunningham asked for another $450,000 to finish the work, Collins said. Collins says he came up with his share, but Cunningham didn't raise his portion. Then Cunningham walked away from the project, Collins said.

"I'm not saying that anybody lied, anybody cheated or anybody stole but ... if you had seen where that project was and how much money was gone and how much money still had to be put in, you would have said something is wrong here," Collins said.

Cunningham said last week that he didn't receive the $1 million bank loan he was expecting to fund the project. "That's why I pulled out of it," he said. "I would not put any more money in it."

Cunningham said that he lost money on the project, too.

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