About a month ago, I received an alert from my Equifax service that my FICO score had dropped 16 points... argh!!!  I logged in and found that my most recent credit application from early May had triggered an inquiry limit, and flagged me as a consumer desperately seeking credit.  Well, it is true that I have applied for credit more over the last 2 years than in any period of my life, but it has not been in desparation.  Over the last 2 years, I've purchased a home and a townhouse, both for rental purposes.  I opened several credit card accounts, including one each from Home Depot and Lowes, to help finance and improve the properties.  All these accounts had very attractive initial interest rates, so it made a lot of sense from a pure financial and accounting standpoint.  My initial seed money for the purchases came from a home equity line of credit (HELOC), and I've since refinanced the first home I purchased.  My two rentals are doing well and turning a small profit, and I have significant equity in both properties.  Yet the vagaries of the FICO formula conspired to make me look desparate.  As I've mentioned before, the FICO formulas don't know or care what your income is or what assets you own, they simply look at trends in your credit habits and try to predict the future based on large-scale patterns of those with similar credit habits.  Some will be helped by these calculations, while others will appear to be a greater credit risk than they really are.