It's nice to hear that many banks take a common sense approach and weigh credit scores, credit utilization rate, ability to repay debt, etc. far more heavily than the credit card applications that our peculiar hobby requires. As someone who intends to refinance this year, I suspected this was the case, but was a bit concerned because it's taken as such a rule of thumb: Don't apply for credit cards beforehand. Those of us who have good credit scores and the ability to repay our debts should be fine, it would seem.