Fighting foreclosure: Fairburn woman starts business to save home

By Tammy Joyner

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Most people who lose their home might be tempted to have a meltdown. Beverly Davis instead reached for her mixing bowl.

Hoping to repurchase her home, the Fairburn woman launched a website this summer selling homemade cornbread mixes. She also offers cornbread recipes and inspirational bumper stickers such as this one: “When life throws lemons, make lemonade, bake cornbread and sell it.”

Davis’ three-bedroom, two-bath ranch-style home went into foreclosure in June, the last straw in three rough-and-tumble years. The house is under contract with another buyer. But Davis, 48, who also blogs about her efforts to regain her home, is undaunted.

“Trust me, I haven’t lost,” she said. “The fight isn’t over yet. I’m going to stick with it through grace, dignity and faith.”

Davis lost her full-time government job in 2006 — 14 months after buying her home. She began patching together income by selling greeting cards and her own concoction of nail polish, and holding yard sales. She also worked part-time at a furniture store, until her hours were drastically cut.

It wasn’t until she made a pan of cornbread for a group of neighborhood kids that she hit upon the idea of Cornbreadmillionaire.com. She assembled cornbread mixes in friends’ kitchens and even came up with a few recipes like Homegirl’s Sweet Potato Cornbread.

“All of this happened for a reason — to get me out of my comfort zone,” said Davis, who has been living in an extended-stay hotel in Union City. “It lit a fire in me. A good fire.”

That fire — and the cornbread mix — has brought Davis national recognition, more than $54,000 in donations and orders, and admiration from housing experts.

“I can’t say I’ve heard of many interesting things people are doing to get their home back,” said Eugene James, Atlanta director of the research firm Metrostudy. “Kudos to this lady.”

James said he is seeing more people fighting to keep their homes, which in many instances are worth less than the homeowners owe on them.

“The popular perception has been that it’s more savvy for people to give the keys back to the bank because they’re under water,” said Andy Carswell, an associate professor in the University of Georgia’s Department of Housing and Consumer Economics. But, he said, “the further people get behind, the more ingenuity you’ll find.”

Recent data from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University shows that the housing slump has sharply curtailed mobility among Americans, especially homeowners.

“The drop in mobility tells you people are staying put,” Carswell said. “Housing slump or not, people still value housing from a personal perspective. They don’t want to lose it.”

The Fairburn house was the first home Davis had bought. “I had excellent credit, a job and savings.”

She said she was “humiliated” when the house went into foreclosure. “I had no money when I walked out of my house.”

Nowadays, Davis spends her days filling and shipping orders. Sales climbed close to $10,000 in the first 45 days after she launched her website.

A California woman recently donated $1,000 after hearing Davis’ story on NPR.

“I wanted to help her. So many people, when times get tough, just roll over and play dead,” said Christine Benninger, who lives in Woodside, Calif. “She said, ‘I’m not going to let this get me down and I’m going to figure out a way to get my house back.’ Even if she doesn’t get her house back, she’s got a business.”

The housing market is ripe with affordable homes due, ironically, to foreclosures, James said. Of the 299 properties for sale in Fairburn, for instance, 82 are listed as bank-owned or foreclosed, James said. The properties range in price from $20,000 to $1.3 million.

“If credit is not an issue, this person will probably have a lot of other nice homes to choose from,” he said. “But then again credit is the big problem today with many people being able to buy a house.”

Davis isn’t ruling out buying another home, but for now her efforts are centered on moving back into her home.

“When a person is unemployed, unable to find a job, some people automatically assume you can’t manage money and will treat you like a failure,” Davis said. “You can’t make somebody hire you. But you can hire yourself. For me, that was the solution.”

Homegirl’s Sweet Potato Cornbread

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 cups cooked, mashed sweet potatoes
• 3/4 cup stick butter or margarine, melted
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup self-rising yellow cornmeal mix (or white)
• 1 cup self-rising flour
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon grated nutmeg
• 1/2 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease 9-inch by 9-inch square baking dish with vegetable oil and place in oven. Preheat until oil is sizzling. In a bowl, mix potatoes, butter and brown sugar. Add molasses, buttermilk, vanilla and eggs. Mix well.

Blend together cornmeal mix, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and raisins. Mix well. Pour batter into preheated baking dish.

Bake for one hour until toothpick or knife inserted in center comes out clean and cornbread is brown.