house hunting

I knew house hunting wouldn't be easy, but I didn 't know it would be this difficult. We have so many needs, but such a low price range. We need a yard for Roscoe, at least 3 bedrooms, something that we can move into pretty much right away even if it needs some work, a safe neighborhood, cheap...etc. Every house we look at is lacking at least one of these things, and we don't know what to give up on our wish list. They are all important to us! I feel like we are moving to the ghetto. One house we saw yesterday had neighbors that had a yard full of old, broken down cars and a barking dog chained to the back porch. I guess I will have to get used to city life in some ways, but at least most of the other houses we looked at seemed to be in more decent neighborhoods. We are looking again on Saturday, but the options out there are pretty bleak. It can be very discouraging at times, but I am trying to picture what the houses COULD look like after some work and a little bit of renovating. I don't want to settle on something, but at the same time we want the tax credit, and paying rent would probably be more than a mortgage at this point. Plus, Roscoe NEEDS a yard! I think I would be more afraid to live in an apartment in Baltimore than to have my own house. There would be shady people living right next door to me instead of a couple of houses down. I am praying that something better comes onto the market this week, or that the one house we like isn't too messed up for us to buy and fix up a little bit. I am terrified of making a mistake on such a huge investment.