Does buying this house in Los Angeles make sense?

[Matthew Newman]

My wife and I are first time home buyers in Los Angeles.  We got married in July and we are looking to start a family in the next year.  We are currently in Studio City paying only $1,400/month rent for our 1br apt and need more space. We have 5% to put down and have been preapproved for $570,000.  We really do not want to spend more than $525,000 on a property, but the problem is that there is no Single Family homes in the area that we like in that price range, so we were considering renting.  The problem is that the rental market is not very forgiving either.  We were looking at rents of 2600 and up for our needs

We made an offer on a 2br 2.5ba town home for $325,000 5% down. Including PMI, Taxes and home insurance, our monthly nut would be around $2,450. The rents in the area are going for $2,500 and has been a good rental property for the sellers. We made the offer so that we could get into the market and not "throw money away" on renting. We only plan on staying here for at most 2 to 3 years.

Here are my questions:

Am I off base to think that this could be a great potential investment property that i could hold onto when we eventually move on to a nicer home? 

Does this property cashflow well enough at $2,500/month that we should rent it out now and stay in our current apartment where we could save even more money for the next house?  

Would holding onto this place when we move hurt us in applying for our next loan?

Is there any advice you could offer for a good 1 to 5 year plan?

I appreciate you taking the time to read this.  thanks