Hi @CJ415,
I think it is a very good thing to have a Bay Area property in your investment portfolio and that you should try to hold onto it. It gives you exposure to the housing market here and comfort that you can have a roof over your head if you need one (even though you don’t live there right now.) Your property is in an A location and you have low property taxes relative to price. If you sell you may not be able to buy again, especially if your job future means some instability.
My sense though is also that a lot of your net worth is tied up in this property, possibly too much. And that the skewed ratio is contributing towards some of the discomfort. You mention having 200K invested in market and with 650K in the property, it’s the majority of your net worth. To balance things out, I’d suggest definitely not paying off the loan. Take the 1K/month profit from the property and invest that into stock market, and also anything you have left over from your salary. And then see if you can get a line of credit on your property, so that you can have a cash cushion available if you really need one. If rates drop, you could also consider refinancing your property and pulling some cash out so it runs at a smaller profit, and then you could take that cash (say 100-200K or so) and invest it in the stock market and diversify.