Why do hard pulls on your credit make it go down?
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First thing to understand about credit scores is that they are for the banks, and not you.
Hard pulls have no meaning to you, but to the banks they suggest you are looking for more credit. As noted in other comments, that might mean you are planning to take on more credit but have not yet. That leads to a risk that cannot be defined yet, hence a lowered score. Basically the lowered score is temporary and discourages you from continuing to look. Effectively this acts as a mechanism to forcefully control your ability to shop around, or to obtain lots of credit quickly. Both situations the banks dislike.
Overall it is best to think of credit scores with significant skepticism. An ideal borrower (aka someone who does not need to borrow) can have very low credit scores of they have chosen to avoid credit in the past. Additionally, someone drowning in debt can have a very good credit score. Someone who is “good at borrowing” gets a good credit score. That is a major part of why so many people have significant debt these days.
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