Advice for financing conundrum

[Bryan Freeman]

Was hoping that someone could offer some advise in regards to my situation:

First, I have owned a duplex and rented it  out for about 5 years now, as my sole rental property, up until 2018.

In 2018, I decided to focus on turning some non-productive properties that I owned into producing ones.  Namely, these are 3 houses that I bought about 7 years ago that were distressed and sat vacant for many years.  I rehabbed all 3 houses over the course of last year and had them rented out before they were finished, and before ever listing them.  They each rent for $1000/month.  

To pay for the rehabs, I took a mortgage on the duplex (about $55k), took a mortgage on house #1 ($110k), and maxed out my credit cards ($65k --and perhaps a mistake).

Now,  I'm quite happy with the rental property, but not so happy with paying my massive credit card payments that average about 18-20%apr on 65k.  As you can imagine, this is significantly affecting my bottom line.

I'd like to get out of the $65k credit card debt, but I'm running into a few issues.

1). Even though I typically have around an 800 credit score and perfect credit history, my CC utilization has lowered my score to 630.  I did not anticipate such a huge impact, but now I know.  Even though my sole purpose for seeking additional financing is to payoff the credit cards, I'm not sure how this will affect things, since the credit score is low.

2). Since I just finished these 3 houses in May, August, and November of 2018, the current state of income will not be reflected at all on my most recent tax return, and in a limited way on my upcoming 2018 tax return.

3). DTI. I have spoken to the bank that financed the 2 properties last year, and they won't finance anymore until I get my DTI under 50%. Even though they will use my current numbers after verifying the lease agreements, they calculate DTI by adding NOI to the denominator, and debt service of the rentals directly to the numerator, as opposed to taking NOI minus debt service and then adding that result to the debt or income. My impression from reading everything I could read about DTI on bigger pockets is that the latter is how DTI is most commonly calculated. Depending on which way you calculate it, DTI varies quite a bit. Perhaps I misunderstood, but it most definitely is not the way my local bank does it.

House 2 and 3 I own free and clear, valued at $300k combined.

I also have about $100-$110k in equity on my primary residence, which I would be fine with getting a HELOC on.

I'm not sure what to pursue at this point. I'm thinking I should pursue a HELOC since it would likely be easiest (I would think), and pay my credit cards off, so that I can get my credit score back up in the next couple of months. I'm guessing that would open things up to where I could borrow against house 2 or 3, pay off my HELOC, then use my HELOC for purchasing deals (then refi out and replenish HELOC).... If I can qualify for a HELOC under these circumstances.

Hopefully this all made sense.  I would appreciate any advice you could offer.

B