Need to refinance hard money loan, good equity, bad credit

[Meghan McGuire]

I currently own two properties a four family and a duplex. I have a FHA loan on the four and a hard money loan on the duplex. I have rehabbed the duplex and am all in for $101,000 the property is worth $162,000 the lender is pressing me to refi as I am about 2 years in to what was supposed to be a 6 month loan I have applied for a new loan twice and been turned down due to my credit score it's about 540 right now mostly because of my credit utilization I'm basically maxed out on all my cards because I used them to rehab the building with the intention of paying them off when I was able to refi but now I can't refinance and I'm stuck in a trap with my credit cards and I'm struggling to keep up with them all and it's going to be hard to get my credit score up with the current state of things so I am wondering if anyone has any suggestions as to what I can do. I have equity in both of my properties and if I could do a cash out refi I could pay off all my existing debt and lower my monthly mortgage payments and get back on track but right now I just feel stuck and the people I have talked with are not much help all they do is explain to me how credit scores work and how to improve my credit but I already know all of that but when you have more debt than income it becomes hard to get out of the vicious interest cycle. Just looking for some advice please