Check out some of Immanuel and my other posts for details backing this up but suffice to say Notre Dame is working with SB to bring in high tech industries, there is a new power plant going in south of town, it still has great manufacturing including trailer construction, it is on the intersection of 2 busy highways 80 & 31, and it is less than 2 hours from downtown Chicago which is one of the largest inland ports in the world.

The problem is the highway noise from I275.

The outstanding mortgage with interest is $175,000.I have been considering offering 100-125k for the building, but without a tenant upstairs, this only increases my costs --- at least for the next four years.

I believe that you would still have to disclose it on an FHA application, they want to know all of your outstanding debts and monthly payment amounts.  

Are they the ones on highway 5?

Any suggestions for plumbers that work on commercial/multifamily in Ventura County, California?

I would imagine I should also probably run a title search and make sure there are no outstanding liens on the properties.

The key is that 2 year work history that you'll need to establish.In certain circumstances you can use the income before you even receive your first paystub (certain relocation and job change scenarios), however typically you'll need to receive atleast 1 paystub to use it.If you have had no work within the last 12 months preceeding this new job then you may need to be on this job for a min of 6 months before you can close on this new loan which would hamper your plans to close within 45 days on this duplex.Then again scenario #3 if you have the credit and the down payment and the property cash flows from conventional underwriting perspective and you have "no credit card debts," on your credit report then you may be able to qualify any way since your debt to income or DTI will be 0% (property cash flows) no debt outstanding to qualify for as the duplex will be adding income to your scenario.I've had an underwriter okay scenario #3 above but have never funded a deal like.

How can I make sure if there is other lien or any other outstanding cost associated to the property?   

Sure, I got the title search part and a need to pay off whatever outstanding liens may be there.