Do I sell my payed off large house or use it as collateral .

[Jimmy Girigori]

hi, I am married and I am 53 years old.Just finished paying my 25y mortgage on my house. only my wife and I in large 5 bedroom beautiful house in the Caribbean.Now I am thinking towards retirement & creating passive income. So I do not need to work a normal dayjob. The good thing is this house is now worth 1.5 million US$. ( I have no pension )In order to invest in real estate I need money. What is better? To sell the existing house and buy a smaller house for us to live in and use the large part of that sale money to invest in real estate? or to use the house as collateral ( get a loan on the house ) and use this money to buy a few properties? Purchasing properties by putting downpayments on the houses do I can purchase more properties ?

thx. jimmy G