Buying, renting, selling foreclosure and short sale

[Chris Igard]

My wife and I purchased a foreclosure 14 months ago for 75k and we’ve found a really nice short sale in a much better neighborhood at 244k but the other homes in the subdivision with the same square footage are selling at 330k. We will move out of the new place in 3-5 years as our kids get older. I’d like to keep the home we bought last year and rent it out as other rentals in the area fetch about $1100 to $1200 a month. I’ve got several questions, should we sell or keep the old place, i believe we could get about 125 to 130k for it. Should we put down the minimum down payment or 20 percent to avoid the pmi payment and additional interest on the new place. Would it be better to do a 15 year or 30 year mortgage if we did put 20 down knowing we would be moving? Is it even wise to buy a short sale knowing you wIll moving 3-5 years?