Managing Debt & Reserves

[Matt I.]

To maintain a credit card balance and build cash reserves, or keep my $ cash low while aggressively paying down debt?

My goal for this year is to save $$ and build a healthy cash reserve. For years I've been in the habit of keeping my 'bad' debt as low as possible. Credit cards, car loans, student loans, other large financed items etc. 

After purchasing my third property in December using 100% leverage (used a HELOC for 20% downpayment, mortgage the rest) I may be slightly overleveraged. This recent property purchase had a few big expenses right off the bat. At this point my HELOC is almost maxed out at $50k, and I have a CC balance of $4,000 +/-. Other than that, I have a small balance for student loans and an HVAC system that I financed. (car is paid off)

Is it better to just hold some of this debt and let it accrue the interest, so that I can build cash reserves? Or keep the cash balance in my bank relatively low, and aggressively pay down the debt to minimize the amount of interest I pay. In the second scenario, I suppose my access to debt would be my emergency reserves. 

As a background I have one single family LTR that cashflows, my primary residence that I'm rehabbing, and a STR that is (finally) starting to cashflow. + my W2 employment which I believe is pretty stable. My credit fluctuates between low 800's and high 700's.