There are great, large, historic homes in Charles Village for around 300k. Would be at the top of your commute range but I adore the neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods (Remington, Old Goucher, Abell)

Good luck in your house search! Hopefully whoever you work with to buy your home will tell you about the grants and incentives available for first time buyers, and I would imagine, teachers. When we bought our house in Baltimore in November we got almost 9k through various grants to put towards the down payment . Here is a site with some that are available.

Where did you go? I was quoted a lot more than that plus 200$ for the shield itself