Joe T. good to see a young guy like yourself getting into in and taking action early! 

First let me start off by stating that i'm a rookie who's following the advice of many BP podcast and webinars by trying to take action!!!.

@RaySlack is right you may need to file a quiet title action to ultimately get a clear title.If I were in your position I would also hire a skip tracing service simultaneous to filing a quiet title action suit to find the person.

I would like to refinance them both under a commercial loan in the future and was wondering if that was the best course of action?

Otherwise you would have to go through the typical unlawful detainer action to evict the tenant.

I'm sure you're going to love it here and meet a lot of great people to help you get started.I'd definitely recommend attending local meet-ups and networking with various  trades unless you plan on doing all the work yourself.

(proof positive of my limited intellectual capacity).On a lighter note, I'm pretty happy that I've traded CA's 9.3% state income tax for Ohio's 4.4%.

I like the no BS, take action approach he promotes.

Assuming your credit is good.Define your criteria, decide on a market, start shortlisting properties and take action.

I've probably bought and sold a dozen props with meth action.