It is in great condition and wouldn't require any initial repairs.

Made him a fair offer and he counters not too far above my initial offer.

If so, consider budgeting for the expense of hiring a PM, even if you do initially plan to manage the property yourself.If it turns out you don't need to hire this job out, then the money will go into your pocket anyway, as if you hadn't budgeted for it in the first place. 

HUD allows a 15 day period to initiate utilities at eh buyer's expense IF the FSM allows the utilities to be turned on based on their previous inspections. 

Management (even if you self manage you should budget for it so that that if something changes you have the room for it) repairs, maintenance, (this should b low initially since you just did rehab but in the rental game things happen and you should plan for it) Snow removal?

The owner asked way too much money initially and I countered with a more reasonable offer and we haven’t spoken since.

The seller initially wanted $175k for it and we negotiated it down to $162k.

After my initial research, I was thinking my best option would be to pursue an FHA loan but after learning a little bit about Short-Sales, I wasn’t sure if that would be a better option for me?

If trash pickup or scavengers don't get it, remove it later on as part of the rehab debris.Should be easily doable in 8-10 weeks, including initial notice.

My question for you today is due to the fact that we haven't settled on a syndication attorney yet--we're still in the initial phase before we go through that process and potentially have one on retainer.