Your spending must really be OTT to blow thru that kind of cash and not pay any asset down, you mentioned you are correcting this and that's a good step but consider my advise on tracking you expenditure and cutting down any more excess luxuries.
If your base currently is 150K and your bonus say 4 months? That's roughly 200k a year (correct me if mistaken). To be honest I don't see any reason why the banks will not loan you 1M taking that into consideration, if you're really keen don't ask friends, just go down and speak to a loan officer to get a better understanding.
To boost rating you can cancel your cards but you need to cancel for an entire bank (i.e
UOB/HSBC etc) cards, even 1 card with a bank can impact your rating. Alternative is to invest in a property that's already tenanted then you can use the rental income on top of your earning to qualify.
Although these are methods to get around the loan restriction I question your property investment decisions, the market is gonna get worse and I suspect you are looking at new properties which is something property investors generally don't go for especially in a overpriced market that we see now. It also sounds like you are stretching a little, that's also not a good sign cause on a down market if can spell a lot of trouble.
You mention you are willing to slash 40% off pricing to get rental income, many people who invest long time back can slash much lower and still cover their cost. My properties are centrally located and if I slash 50% I can still cover, boiling down to location and size if the rental market worsens its not that easy to slash and get tenants fyi.
Think wisely, one bad call can ruin you.