Pensacola/Pace housing (Ferry Pass, Milton, Gulf Breeze: for sale, real estate market, refinancing)

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I've accepted a position in Santa Rosa County w/ the school district. I'll be visiting schools in both the south and north end of the county and my office will be in Milton where Avalon Blvd. meets US 90. I'm a little familiar with Escambia and Santa Rosa as a traveling worker but not so much as a local. I've lived there for work off and on since 2016. My budget is 400k and lender has pre-approved with, but I haven't found much looking at the real estate websites and driving by houses for sale. Lender says that we could easily go above that, but we are keeping our house in La. for at least another year or two. I don't want to be house poor. Going above 400k would mean much of our money goes to housing. I would like my commute to the office and most schools in the SR county to be 30 minutes or under. It will probably be more for Navarre though. So far I've been looking in Pace toward west Milton (not sure where Pace ends and Milton begins). I've also looked in north Pensacola (Ferry Pass I guess) up toward Cantonment down through East Hill (probably can't afford this) through Gulf Breeze up to about Garcon Point bridge then back up to Milton. I haven't looked toward Beulah because I'm thinking that my commute would be long but maybe not if I was close to the interstate. My husband will be going back and forth to NOLA frequently.

Do I need to worry about air quality because of the chemical plants in north Pensacola?
I've seen conflicting reports about water quality, but we would have a water filter, probably whole house.

Am I missing any areas? I don't have school aged children, so I don't need to worry about schools. Of course, I'm concerned about resale.

We could get a fixer upper. My husband has a construction background, but we are wanting to go VA d/t a lower interest rate and easier refinancing if rates ever go back down.

Do I need to worry about the quality of the newer houses (DR Horton, etc.)? In La., there are law suits against this builder and similar ones. If you knock out those subdivisions, you knock out a large portion of houses in my range unfortunately. We aren't crazy about most of those subdivisions though because they are stacked on top of one another with very small driveways which means many will end up parking in the street.

I'm going Sunday 7/9 to see at least one open house but hopefully more. Thanks for any advice/input. I'm feeling like I made a huge mistake accepting the position given the current real estate market in the Pensacola area and probably most of Florida. I won't be making more money...I'll actually be making less.