First home buyer, financing questions

[Patryk Mag]

Hello.

My and my wife are planning to buy a home or apartment in Florida. We dont know what kind of property would be the best choice so we wont regret it in the future. Our monthly income is around $4000, probably going to be around $5000 in the near future, of course it may be more but this is what are the facts at the moment. Right now we are paying $1450 in NY rent each month and we are doing fine from month to month but we are able to save any money. We have around $15k in savings. I think we would be good with paying around $1200 monthly mortgage fees (with all other property fees included like tax etc.) and there will still be some left to save with the perspective of making at least $5000. I cannot be sure that we would stay in the house for 30 years, probably not, I hope we would be making enough money in few years to afford a much better home so I want to get something with the perspective of paying it off, selling it or renting it in 10 years at most. Just to add we are under 30 years old. So my question to you is,

- Should I look for a home or an apartment? House would be around $200k, apartment would be under $140k, a small house with pool that I would be very satisfied with would be around $250k. Apartment would very likely have some HOA fees so it might be better to just get a home but apartment is easier to rent or sell in the future.

- What mortgage term should I get 10, 15, 20 or 30 years? I would be willing to pay weekly or bi-weekly to save some money on interest.

- What to do with the $15k that I have? I was thinking about putting a down payment but it might be better to leave it on a savings account

- Is it worth making principal payments if I wont plan to stay in the property for a long a long time? I would probably do better with putting that money to the savings account. If I would get a more expensive home I dont think its a good idea to make any principal payments as I would probably loose them when I would want to sell the house and pay off the mortgage. What do you think?

I have a lot going on in my mind, that is all I could think of at the moment. Answers from someone experienced with that would help me really a lot. Thank you.