sell to buy or hold on!?

Hi guys,

I am a south african, new to investing and looking for advice about a possible deal in south africa. (I live in melbourne now)

I own a property in cape town S.Africa that I rent out (at a slight cash loss each month) but the value has virtually tripled in the 3.5 years since I bought and worked on the property. My partner and I bought the vacant lot next door to my house, and it is worth twice what we paid for it early this year, so lots of equity but no cash!!

Now a lot of this was basically luck, buying at the right time etc.

There is a proposed housing development on the large vacant land next to the lot that we own.

So my question is this, should we sell the vacant lot in order to buy a factory unit down the road with a sufficient cash input to allow a positive cash flow on the factory (there will be no more factory development so this is the last of its type in the area)

Or should we hang onto the vacant lot, buy the factory (thereby loosing more money each month) and sell the lot after the housing development has been completed and the vacant lot is worth more…..?

Any advice would be great! I feel like I got lucky on the first properties and would like to keep the advantage in my favour.

thanks,
josh