I speculate, that in my market, the tenants enlisting realtors are actively looking for a home (unlikely to renew) and want to get there roots down in the town while they shop.- another animal of course if you enlist a realtor...

You'll need to separate your assets (either by using a Series-LLC or individual LLC with assessed distribution of assets by LLC) and you'll need to separate your passive (asset holding entities) from active operations (the property management side).After you took care of all this you can look into other more complicated/expensive strategies like you describe (equity stripping).Here is a diagram to help you on this quest - talk with @Scott Smith for professional advice on this:

Does anyone know any brokers there or can name some of the more active company's.

Maybe someone will act on it and buy, This kind of activity keeps the price up and makes it easier for local investors to sell to OOS entities. 

The lawyer I reached out to got more active after the New Year.

Just a year ago all kinds of real estate folks were pleading for more active listings and saying prices can't continue to climb like this.

In conclusion, it seems as though reducing your living expenses first, and then focusing on increasing your active and passive income will most likely accelerate your journey the quickest while you maintain your full time jobs. 

Those groups are active daily, with a lot of interaction. 

It definitely solves your issue of not having to be actively involved at all in the investment.

I'm just starting to learn how to analyze deals and am actively looking for areas with potential (investigating areas in North Carolina and southern part Virginia).