We need to move ASAP. We can no longer afford a private school for my child and the public schools in my city have an almost 80% dropout rate. I cannot in good conscience send my child to school in such an environment. The neighborhood has also become seriously dangerous.

My home value has dropped so dramatically I now owe more than I can sell it for. Not because of an irresponsible mortgage, it just dropped that much. I need advice on how we should go about doing this.

-We are going to cash out our IRA account, should net us about 40k after penalties and taxes. (used to be worth so much more)
-We also have another 12k in the bank.
-We owe 44k on our home. 15-year mortgage with approx 8 years remaining. Homes are selling from 8k - 30k (some higher after being on the market for over a year). Our home is in excellent condition and appraised at $120k 7 years ago, but that is beside the point now.
-Looking at buying a fixer-upper in a better neighborhood. (we're extremely handy with home repairs of all types).

My thought:
-Pay down about 20k on the current mortgage to bring it to current market values and either hope someone buys it quickly or refi the remaining 24k into another 15 year and rent or rent to own it out (mortgage pmt would be less than $200 before property taxes but more closing costs for me). I really want to cut my ties with this house if possible though. The neighborhood is declining at an alarming rate.
-Buy the new home approx 80-90K, put down about 15k, finance the remaining into a 30-year. I could swing both mortgage pmts if I had to but would rather not.
Would leave us 17k for closing costs, other expenses with some left in savings.

My husbands thought:
Use all our available cash and buy what ever we can get for cash and continue to pay our current mortgage and deal with the old house later. (truthfully would mean the new house would be pretty beat up, even if we are handy with repairs there will still be costs for materials and supplies to repair and all the money would have gone toward the purchase).

Other questions:
Are those "Webuyyourhome" websites legit? Are there really people out there doing this, or are these most likely a scam - or the ones who will give you 8k for your home.

Could we put our current home up for 44k and say we will give the buyer 20k at closing? Would it work? is it legal? Many may not even look at it because they excluded such a high price from their search?

In a rent to own situation does the "renter" pay the property taxes or do you bury them in the rent?

We have excellent credit and we both work but would a mortgage company frown on giving out two mortgages (albeit-relatively small ones) in this market?

Any thoughts or suggestions you could offer would be very appreciated.
Thank you!