Adventures in housing...another way of escape!

Over the past several months my husband and I have been exploring the possibility of buying our first house. We have had an unpleasant experience with our current rental situation and really want to escape. Over the past 10 months or so we have had: heater broke the day we moved in and was not repaired for 10 days (in the month of February), electrical outlets and fixtures working inconsistently, plumbing working improperly in the shower, plumbing clogged twice in a few days getting sewage all over the downstairs floor and management refusing to consider it an emergency and guarantee a plumber the same day, air conditioning not working (in the hottest part of the summer) and management took over 5 weeks to fix it (again, didn't consider it an emergency), front door hanging so crooked that rain got in with it closed and we could stick our fingers between it and the frame with it closed, non-working locks on sliding glass doors, etc. The townhouse was clearly not move-in ready when we signed our lease. We had to call code enforcement to get the repairs moved on, the management consistently drags their feet in getting maintenance done. They wait until something is completely broken/non-functional before they fix it, too. Because the repairs were made, in response to code enforcement action, we had no recourse under the Landlord Tenant Act of Kentucky to break our lease. By the time the last straw was reached, we were in a situation where we would pay the same amount to break our lease as finish it out. In addition, the management tried to change the parking policy for our complex to only allow us to park one of our cars in the lot in front of our townhouse and force us to park the other one on the street. Nevermind that the street would only allow for 16 cars to legally park and there are 48 units in the complex, plus our lease included two reserved parking places. So, we circulated a petition amongst our neighbors that forced management to reinstate the second parking space or reduce our rent by $50/month. They gave us the 2nd space! Our lease is up on January 31, 2008 and we hope to have new housing by then. In addition to the maintenance issues in our current home, we have found the commute to work for Royce to be too long (it takes him 45 minutes to an hour and ten minutes each way).
I went to the Kentucky Housing Corporation (a resource for first time home buyers with low income/low cash flow) website and explored what type of assistance and what amount of financing we could get at this time. We would be able to borrow around 95K and get some assistance with down payment and closing costs. We also explored the house listings for the area near Royce's job. There are a few houses that sell under the 100K price, but they tend to be in less than wonderful neighborhoods, repossessed homes, have major repair/renovation needed and are in short supply. We only needed to find one that would meet our needs and be in a good location. However, with the cost of property taxes and home owner's insurance, we found the payments even on the modestly priced houses more than we currently feel comfortable paying.
But, all is not lost. We have another way of escaping our current housing disaster. There are a number of good rental duplexes not far from Royce's workplace in good neighborhoods and for modest rent. We have enough money saved to pay the deposits and rent a moving truck. So, we are exploring duplexes to rent and hope to report a new address very soon!