1. Production is generally slow early game. Once more people join, and people start making second businesses, or improving production of their first, it will pick up.
By end game, you may be producing faster then you can sell, even at minimum price. Another problem is all the idiots selling extremely high demand resources for extremely low price (Referring to very early game, people selling for $5 and $10).
3. If the person never comes back, then their lot gets repossessed after a few days, and players can buy it and do whatever they want with it.