Sell or Hold in Salt Lake City...

[David B.]

Hi all, 

I have a townhouse I purchased in the midst of the pandemic. I put 50k down at the time, and now the property has ballooned up in equity. I probably have about 185k in equity at the moment should I sell. 

The property will also cash flow well @ roughly 800 dollars a month... almost a 20% cash on cash return. I locked in an interest rate of 2.9 percent.  

However, on the equity I currently hold in the house, I'm only making about 5% on the money. 

So my options are to either rent it out and hold the asset, or to sell the property and collect on the 185k in equity. 

If I sold it, I would either use that equity to hold as cash, possibly wait to inject into a dipping stock market (I do both stocks and real estate), or more likely use it to buy new property. 

I will note that the townhouse is in an awesome area of Salt Lake City and likely to continue growing in value. That said, I am worried about a correction that eats at the delicious equity I already have. 

* BONUS QUESTION *

When selling a property, is it better to reinvest that capital into multiple properties, or use it to purchase one bigger asset?

So if I make 180k on the sale of my townhouse, I could either...

Place 90k in two separate properties (2x 450k properties)

OR

Put 180k into one bigger property ( say a 900k property)

Curious to your thoughts. 

Thanks!