Bought and managed properly, real estate will provide you plenty of chances to take vacations and ultimately achieve a lifestyle away from all the sane people so that you can deal with your craziness.

Take some time and write out what your current situation is, what your goals are and then actionable step listed in importance to achieve said goals. 

Good luck to in on achieving your goals.

If it's cash flow, you're very unlikely to achieve that in Olympia, operating from afar and buying single fam (certainly not townhouses) in the 200k range.You may cashflow slightly in other areas, as @Dawn Young mentioned (Yakima, Tri-Cities, Spokane) but again, operating from afar, your returns are likely to be <8% cash on cash.It's been 11 years since you left WA state...unless you have inside tracks to property managers, contractors or reliable people on the ground, you're essentially starting from scratch.  

It looks like selling one or two properties is your best option to achieve the capital request.  

And I will follow your advise; learning and getting ready : )Even though sometimes it seems to be a dream far to achieve, I will put the best of me : )

I actually have the opportunity to attain an MBA without having to pay tuition but the opportunity cost involved with time that has to be invested to achieve an MBA, in my opinion, is not worth it.  

The best advice I was given was for your first handful of calls is just relax and forget about trying to make a deal.

Anyways does anyone have experience with both locating debtors and actually collecting from them first hand?  

Depending on what your gain situation is it may be worth your while to forgo the exchange on one or both in order to achieve what you want.But, if finding the right replacement property seems to be more difficult than selling your old properties and depending on your pent up tax liability it may be worth your while to consider doing a reverse exchange.