If this is your first time visiting my blog, welcome! My name is Christine Springer and I'm the founder of Desert Edge Legal Services and the creator of this blog. I am solely responsible for the content in this post. Please note that I am not a lawyer and therefore cannot give you legal advice. Please do your own research and/or consult with a competent attorney about your personal circumstances.
It feels strange to be back here blogging after the pandemic. There were a lot of things that were not working with Desert Edge Legal ("DEL") and I wasn't really even sure the business would be viable again.
I had to leave Phoenix for a multitude of reasons and most of them related to the pandemic. I returned to the midwest to stay with family but am planning to return to Phoenix as soon as it makes sense to do so.
I am finishing up a long 15 year cycle in 2021 and have gone through a major inner personal transformation. I have no idea how many people have actually continued to read my blog since the last recession and foreclosure crisis, but much has changed and the business model is also going to change as a result.
And for some reason I feel like these posts have to make linear sense and fill in the gaps about what I've been doing. As such, I'm writing this post to preview some of the changes that I'm making to my business. There will probaby be more of them as I enter the new normal in our post-pandemic world.
I am and will continue to be making changes to the website in the coming weeks and months. One of the changes is that eventually, everyone who wants to read my blog content will be required to register. I also plan to sell afforadable subscriptions for the content on the site.
The blogging platform I'm using, Ghost, just released a theme that will allow me more control over my content. Unlike the last time I wrote a blog full time, I'm not going to be giving my best content away for free.
At a minimum, everyone will be asked to set up an account in order to read the free content. Beyond that, I will either sell subscriptions or sell access to specific posts for content that I wouldn't want to write a full on e-Book.
I like selling eBooks but they do take a bit more time to write and organize, whereas usually I can put a post together in a day or two. This gets the content out to readers faster and while the topic is hot and relevant.
The other thing I like about the hosting upgrades is that I don't have to go through another site, like Patreon, to offer additional content. My website is set up to accept subscription payments directly.
I can also send e-mails to my readers directly which is a very nice feature. I have an old e-mail list that I will be reaching out to with invitations to register with the new site and then I'll be removing all the popups and signup code from the site because e-mail addresses will be required to read my content. E-mail is integrated with the site theme (yay!) AND included with my hosting package which will be a significant savings as the readership grows.
The other changes will be in the property analytics part of my business. I will no longer offer deeply discounted loan audits. I gave a lot in the last recession and it was at a steep personal financial loss.
I also want to be clear that I am no longer interested in talking about foreclosure fraud in the way it was discussed in the last recession. You may be surprised to learn that there are people who have been in foreclosure for ten years or more, since around 2008. They might be OK considering the changes in the case law in some places.
I'm so tired of hearing about foreclosure fraud and that it somehow means you will get your house for free.
Ugh. I'm so over it.
Also, this is not 2010, when foreclosure defense was a developing area of the law. There were a lot of bad things that happened to homeowners, but unfortunately unless you are prepared to lawyer up or take some other actions, like filing bankruptcy, there's not much you can do. Class actions aren't going to save your home, and good luck getting the green light for class action certification, if you can find a law firm to take your class action case.
I do think there was a lot of wrongdoing by banks, but my opinion doesn't matter. The case law matters, and in many jurisdictions, the case law is now decided and the case law usually controls how other later cases with similar fact patterns are decided.
The other problem with foreclosure defense is that homeowners in foreclosure usually don't have the money to hire a lawyer. I've seen a lot of homeowners in foreclosure who DO hire a lawyer and they get pretty good outcomes. I've seen people pawn items and do whatever it took to hire a lawyer. They managed to avoid losing their homes because they were committed to finding the money.
It's impossible to predict the exact outcome of your litigation but usually you get a far better solution than losing the home.
Enough about that for now.
Finally, I'm available for property analytics consultations and contract paralegal work. I'll be updating my services page in the weeks ahead, but you can always e-mail me at christine [at] Desert Edge Legal dot com for help.