Selling real estate counter productive to building wealth?

[Jack B.]

Although I've made massive equity gains from my real estate portfolio of single family homes, in just a short period of time, it seems to me that too much of the proceeds go to transaction costs when selling. I have not sold yet and there's only one house I expect to sell just to get out of the HOA, because I know it's a long term risk. But between transaction costs, taxes, etc. it seems nearly half the proceeds go to the government or the realtors. Even with a 10-31 exchange you're still paying a lot of your leveraged gains worth in fees.

Seems to me cash out refinance is the way to go, keeping more money in my pocket, and readjusting the cash flow of existing property to fit a specific income threshold over time to minimize income taxes in retirement (Right now my taxable income is in the low to mid six figures but in retirement I plan on keeping my realized investment income low so I am free of capital gains taxes).

Plus this way I can always come back to the Seattle area and move into one of my rentals if my retirement destination (Florida) doesn't work out. 

Anyways, anyone else avoid selling for this reason? If I sold my houses right now I would owe nearly 200K in taxes, fees, etc. That's a huge bite out of my gains where I took all the risk, did all the heavy lifting and everyone else still benefits as much as I do from it...The welfare mooches to the over paid realtors involved.