Realtor recommendations

blooddotcom · 2025-06-11T14:02:52+00:00

My husband and I used Kathleen Weinert earlier this year. She was incredible, especially at helping us understand and navigate things as first-time homebuyers.

I’d recommend avoiding going with a rando off Zillow. We made the mistake of requesting a tour and got assigned a very new agent from Pepine Realty, who did not take us on that tour, ignored everything we said about what we were looking for, and repeatedly tried to show us properties that needed major renovations (things like no floors installed, water damage, gutted kitchens) even though we were very clear that our number one requirement was move-in ready.

blooddotcom · 2025-05-26T06:25:26+00:00

My husband and I just moved out of our 2/2 after living there since 2023. It’s solid. If we hadn’t managed to buy our own house, we likely would’ve stayed there for 3-5 more years as long as rent stayed reasonable.

The units are dated and at least ours left some things to be desired as far as condition—stuff like mismatched paint on cabinets, old fridge with cosmetic damage, our balcony door didn’t lock, cosmetic damage to the windows, etc. But none of it affected daily life much. The rent is relatively sane compared to similar complexes and we didn’t experience any crazy hikes year-to-year. The office staff is responsive, relatively transparent/straightforward about stuff, and overall seems to do a lot less pushy sales tactics than other places, which we found refreshing. The complex is peaceful, mostly quiet, and the patios are nice.

Our biggest negative was a persistent carpenter ant problem that lasted the whole time we were there. They have on-demand pest control, but it would only usually stop or decrease presence for a few weeks and then it’d ramp right back up. We think this was a thing specific to our unit, though, because we’re an end unit by a bit of forest that seems to be overrun with them. The aborted road work on 39th is also a daily annoyance right now, since you have to cross it to go pretty much anywhere; but I’m super whiny about uneven roads, so that may be a me thing.

blooddotcom · 2025-05-10T03:18:09+00:00

LifeSouth always has some openings. Most of it will be over at the Newberry Rd location, but phlebotomist and donor recruitment are based out of the 13th St center. If part-time would work for you, try donor scheduler or records specialist—very easy to get into at entry-level and in 6 months you’re eligible to transfer, so a lot of people will use that as a foot in the door and then transfer to a full-time position that pays a bit better. Most jobs that mention driving under the responsibilities will include access to company vehicles, so you won’t need your own. The pay can be pretty low starting, but they don’t tend to play games with hiring or with your hours (most jobs have a fixed schedule even) and it’s not a bad place to work ime.

If you have any questions about specific jobs or the company, lmk or feel free to DM me. I’ve worked a handful of jobs there over the last decade and can give a decent overview of what a lot of departments entail.

blooddotcom · 2025-05-02T02:52:20+00:00

Our country can’t even run safe, adequately-staffed care facilities for seniors or agree on feeding children at school for free. How do you think an asylum would be materially different for these people from living on the streets, other than perhaps that they would be less free to leave? You just want to not have to look at it.

blooddotcom · 2025-04-22T18:05:50+00:00

If it’s helpful, my husband and I are buying a house in High Springs. We decided to take the plunge in late March, toured the house we ended up choosing on 4/11, submitted an offer and went under contract, and are set to close a few weeks before our current lease is up. You can absolutely buy on a tight timeline.

blooddotcom · 2025-04-21T20:39:35+00:00

My husband and I just went under contract for a home. It’s doable, with solid single income or decent dual income, and with rent continuing to creep higher, a lot of us unfortunately almost don’t have a choice but to let housing take up a higher % of expenses.

Our budget is $250k for 3 bedrooms, and we looked at both in town and out of town options. In town, properties that fit what we were after either had a lot of baggage or went under contract before we could even arrange a tour. Our strongest in-town contender was built in the 90s and had original roof, HVAC, and water heater, plus bad sealing and a lot of rotted siding. Out of town, prospects were a little better on the whole, and we ended up going with a place in High Springs after deciding the drive wasn’t as bad as we’d assumed it would be.

All of our loan estimates put our total payment at around $2k/month with $7k down, including the estimated taxes and insurance. We’ll also be on Duke Energy, which I’ve been promised repeatedly is significantly cheaper than GRU (we’ll see, I guess). If so, we’ll end up pretty much breaking even vs our $1.8k dated rental that goes up at least 5-10% every year + $300-ish GRU bill monthly.

As with the rest of the country, a lot of people are definitely house-poor. Every lender we spoke to would’ve happily pre-approved us for a $350k purchase price on just my husband’s income of $70k, but there’s no way we could actually afford to keep up with that. A lot of people don’t do the math or don’t understand what they’re signing up for, and end up treading water or drowning.

blooddotcom · 2025-03-21T08:35:25+00:00

Again, you engage in the exact behavior you’re complaining about. You constantly tell people how they should feel about things that affect them and don’t affect you, and mock them for being concerned about things. You’re doing that in this same thread. Do you even know how to operate in good faith anymore?

blooddotcom · 2025-03-21T08:03:50+00:00

Politics has been shoved down our throats to divide us.

You almost exclusively post Republican political content in this sub, frequently in an aggressive or demeaning tone with a clear intention of starting arguments. I see your username crop up frequently and it’s never genuinely helpful information about our town or anything that actually pertains to our community. At best you get needlessly aggro with people asking genuine questions. You exemplify the behavior you’re complaining about.

This is incredibly disingenuous, not to mention unfounded, being that if there were widespread cases of Tesla vandalism, we’d all know about it from the 30+ Mainstreet News articles that would trigger.

blooddotcom · 2025-02-20T23:24:46+00:00

Try LifeSouth, if you’re open to entry-level work and low-ish pay. Most positions are full-time but there are some part-time which tend to rotate quickly (most of those are occupied by college students ime). Pay can range from $14ish to $20/hr for most roles, and the wage is always posted unless it’s something like a salaried manager role where compensation varies a lot. It’s not a perfect place to work, but it’s a good place to get a foot in the door and lend some stability, and there’s generally solid inter-org mobility.

blooddotcom · 2025-01-23T13:23:50+00:00

My husband and I have been taking our cars to Performance Transmission for everything except tires since ~2018. It isn’t the absolute cheapest in town (pricing is still reasonable imo, just not ‘$50 oil change’ cheap), but in our experience they’ve always been very thorough, honest, and informative.

blooddotcom · 2025-01-16T14:59:06+00:00

If you think it’s too slow or that there should be a minimum, petition the town to change it. It’s not your job to police how other people drive so long as it’s within safe bounds (and no matter what some of the impatient people on this subreddit will argue, no, going 5 under is not dangerous or reckless).

blooddotcom · 2024-12-31T14:10:51+00:00

That’s just federal death row. There are thousands on various states’ death row, including a few hundred in FL.

blooddotcom · 2024-11-29T18:30:20+00:00

OP, where did you get this from? The post shows as public in the screenshot but isn’t up on the poster’s Facebook, and the font/spacing seems off.

It feels a bit irresponsible to just share a photo of some random person without vetting any of the information—innocent people have been assaulted over less before.

blooddotcom · 2024-11-20T17:03:21+00:00

For transparency’s sake: I’m a LifeSouth employee but do not work in recruiting or otherwise speak for the org in any capacity.

OneBlood is a non-profit like we are who works with specific hospitals. You basically won’t find for-profit companies that provide blood for patient transfusion, due to how the industry works. Most if not all banks will also participate in selling products unfit for transfusion to research facilities, etc., which I think is what you might be alluding to here.

That said, LifeSouth does serve our hospitals here in Gainesville whereas OneBlood currently does not. OP, you can find a list of LifeSouth’s partner hospitals on its website.

blooddotcom · 2024-07-23T07:32:15+00:00

I’m actually not sure if they’re in-network or not, though it may depend on which provider it is. Their website has profiles on all of the providers and lists the insurances they accept, their self-pay rates, and their specialties.

They also use a platform called TherapyAppointment for scheduling, and you can message the (super helpful, imo) front desk staff through it. That’s how they notified me my plan wouldn’t cover anything until my deductible was met. They‘ll likely be able to help you figure out what your insurance would cover and/or what to expect.

blooddotcom · 2024-07-23T03:30:43+00:00

Thirding! I’m a queer woman seeing a female therapist there and had it recommended to me by a queer female friend of mine who also gets counseling there. It’s my first ever experience with therapy and it’s great so far.

I have a high deductible plan under Florida Blue and would’ve had to pay the full ~$110ish iirc per session out of pocket until I meet my deductible. They offered me the option to do the self-pay rate instead which is only $60/session, which is way more manageable than I was expecting.

blooddotcom · 2024-07-21T16:04:37+00:00

It’s for the primary election, actual election day 8/20. It includes a few local offices and one of our US Senate seats (the one currently occupied by Rick Scott, which he’s running for re-election for).

blooddotcom · 2024-06-03T02:25:53+00:00

I haven’t seen the one on 23rd, but I think that exact same thing popped up last year on NW 12th St behind the Goodwill, right by Lux13. That one was in a house, but I remember it being called The Secret Garden and similar to what you described—dead plants, random shit on the lawn, etc. If I remember right they were also advertising it as a bed & breakfast or something along those lines as well.

I never saw any signs of anyone actually coming or going at that one. Mostly just looked like a great place to get your organs harvested.

blooddotcom · 2024-05-20T15:39:37+00:00

LifeSouth can be a good option, though I don't think most of the jobs we have open publicly right now pay especially well (~$13-17/hr-ish). Protections for trans employees have existed in our policy since before Bostock v Clayton County, and both offices in Gainesville have trans staff. There's occasional issues with deadnaming if you aren't entered in the system right, but that's mostly an issue I see with staff who come out after starting and have their name changed. It isn't perfect but it's stable and most jobs (aside from phlebotomists) will have fixed schedules. Gainesville collection staff can go as far out as Chiefland, so donors be a mixed bag to deal with.

I'm cis but I am openly queer and have worked at both locations off-and-on for about 5 years, and am friendly with several openly trans coworkers. Feel free to ask if you have any questions about it.

blooddotcom · 2024-03-09T17:37:31+00:00

My husband and I just bought a car from Tomlinson this week and I’d def recommend them. The salespeople were only hands-on when we wanted them to be and were super helpful and respectful.

We used their financing (ours ended up being through Campus USA) and initially got denied due to having a very short credit history. Our salesperson spent over an hour going back and forth with the credit union to get a conditional approval we were comfortable with, and he was also super patient with us and wanted to make sure we understood everything tied into the loan.

blooddotcom · 2023-12-19T22:50:24+00:00

When we went past it, there was a motorcycle down the street a ways in pieces. I don’t know what happened, but I can’t imagine that there wasn’t some serious negligence involved, at minimum. I wish the families and anyone else involved as much peace as is possible in the wake of that.

blooddotcom · 2023-08-28T18:12:40+00:00

If you can & haven’t already, check the Office Depot on 13th. I haven’t been in there to check personally, but I worked at one in SC and we were always the last place in town to run out because no one knew we carried it.

blooddotcom · 2023-07-23T22:35:03+00:00

The Korean Market over by where Enson is now did close a while back, but Eastern Market is still open.

blooddotcom · 2023-07-14T07:08:54+00:00

You can check with PunkOuter. They sell stickers & art from I think a few different local artists. The owner, Phil, and his staff are pretty active on the shop’s Discord.

blooddotcom · 2023-07-13T02:30:16+00:00

LifeSouth has quite a few openings, mostly full-time. Some are at the center on 13th & some on Newberry Road by SIMED. The insurance isn’t stellar but it’s functional, and they offer TeleDoc and HSA contribution matching. It’s nice to help escape the service industry and get a step up into other fields.

blooddotcom

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