First Market Bank, a private chain of banks mostly owned by the Ukrop family and Ukrop’s Super Markets Inc., is moving toward its merger later this year with Bowling Green-based Union Bankshares Corp. “There are a zillion reasons why a bank sells out,“ said Kent Engelke, chief economic strategist at Capitol Securities Management in Richmond.

The trouble started, longtime Hanover County builder Howard Ingalls reckons, when he mentioned to his banker that he was planning to build a beach house in Costa Rica. That was back in late 2007, as the housing market started softening, and Ingalls discovered it was taking more time and more work than he’d thought to turn several hundred acres of central King William County woods into a subdivision.