FOLEY, Ala. — Deborah Benton’s ERA Class.Com business card has her nickname printed just above her “Associate Broker” designation. She is “Lucky.”

Yet, the woman who has been a realtor since 1996 might have had reason to doubt that of late. It wasn’t as if she didn’t see the handwriting on the wall a few years ago.

“We saw it ahead of time. We saw it about a year or two before the bottom fell out,” she said in referring to the current economic turmoil that has impacted the local real estate market along with practically every other facet of most Baldwin countians’ lives.

Deborah describes what led up to the current recession as a “shark feeding frenzy.” When she talks about what has happened in the aftermath of that frenzy, she isn’t talking about hardships that have befallen others. She is talking about what happened to her and Michael, her husband.

In short, they lost what Deborah describes as their “dream house” on Soldiers Creek, a house for which they worked for 14 years.

In her work, few real estate sales came her way. Michael had a land clearing company. They took out a second mortgage on their house to get equipment for Michael’s company. That business too came to a standstill, and they finally sold the equipment in an effort to keep the house and pay their bills. It wasn’t to be.

“Because of the income we were used to, we knew there might be a problem down the road,” Deborah said.

“We started calling our bank a year and a half before we got into trouble and tried to get them to work with us. At the time, you couldn’t get a bank to do anything with you. Unless you were in trouble, they wouldn’t do a thing. You’d have to be late on your payments and that sort of thing, which we weren’t at the time.”

Eventually, the Bentons realized they had no alternative except to step back and look at where they were and decide with what they were willing to let go. That was the dream house.

“That was the first hard decision,” Deborah said. “The second one was getting out — having it lost.”

There was some luck at that point. The Bentons had another house nearby in Elberta, one they had helped their daughter buy; one she didn’t need when she got married. They moved into the smaller house and had a monthly payment of about half of the $2,500 monthly mortgage payment of their dream house. Still, they struggled to make the smaller payment.

“I don’t sing in the shower. I pray,” Deborah said.

And she was asking for guidance that day.

“I felt like I had lost the house, not Michael,” Deborah said. “I was crying and saying, ‘God, give me some idea what I can do to help other people and prevent them from going through what we did, and I need to make an income too.’”

According to Deborah, the answer came right then. She jumped out of the shower and, in essence, the Web site realestateagentsarepeople2.com was born.

With Michael’s support, they did research for months and couldn’t find anything like the Web site they have established and which is a work in progress. It is a self-proclaimed “place to sound off, laugh and cry, ask for advice or prayer — without the worry of being judged.”

“We had no place to go,” Michael said of the hardships he and Deborah have been through. “We couldn’t get answers anywhere.”

Now, answers are available for people who have been impacted by the economy. Deborah started looking at Web sites for food banks, thrift stores, pet foster care, and low cost medical care.

“You name it, it’s on the Web site,” she said of realestateagentsarepeople2.com..

Michael came up with the idea to allow people to list distress sales, storm-damaged property, auctions and trades on the web site for a minimal charge — $10 for 90 days, including five photos.

“It’s incredibly expensive to maintain a Web site like we’re doing,” Deborah said of their site, which is managed by Site One, which helped the Bentons develop their pages on the World Wide Web.

Michael has also come up with other ideas that will be incorporated on the Web site. One is a real estate agent safety alert that would warn agents in a given area if a predator is on the prowl, what with agents often meeting potential clients sight unseen at remote locations. The National Association of Realtors wants to run on the site when this link is up, Deborah said.

Deborah also has plans to start a non-profit organization, “Real Estate Agents Against Violence,” where half of membership fees would go toward safety alerts for realtors and half for agent medical care for realtors hurt on the job.

A big financial decision such as having to let go of a dream house is a “major come to God” event, according to Deborah.

“It’s a humbling reality check,” she said, to which Michael added, “It makes you realize what’s important too.”

With that in mind, a prayer request page is available on the site.

“This site — being able to work on this — has been what’s saved me,” Deborah said.

The Bentons’ Web site will have a sound-off page, a link that addresses the current property owner insurance crisis along the Alabama Gulf Coast (Deborah has talked to ACT II, the church-based social ministry group spearheading efforts to get affordable and dependable homeowner’s insurance in this area), a “gallery” page that will showcase Michael’s considerable photographic talents, a “Pit Stop” page that will show beautiful scenery submitted from all over the country, even a place to ask legal questions for a nominal fee.

While Deborah said she loves real estate and will always keep her license, she plans to continue the Web site work and development from now on. She serves as president of Timeless LLC, “The Information Web site about Foreclosure, Bankruptcy and Short Sales across the United States.” Meanwhile, Michael, who is working for a pest control company, hopes to expand his interest in photography into a business.

“Information is power and hope,” Deborah said. It’s the same words printed on her business card for the Web site.

“You have to know what your rights are and what you can do,” Deborah said of going through hard times that she and Michael know firsthand.

“You have to learn that it’s not in your control anymore … but you are not alone. There is help out there.”

While the “Need Help” page on the Web site at present is mostly about Mobile and Baldwin counties, Deborah said theirs will be a national site eventually. The goal: a “Need Help” page for every county in the U.S.