No income, no asset
mortgage lending concept
No income, no asset (or NINA) is one of many documentation types which lenders may allow when underwriting a mortgage in the United States mortgage industry. The lender of a NINA loan does not require that the applicant supply documentation of income or assets.
NINA programs are ostensibly created for those with hard to verify incomes (waiters, etc.) but in actuality have been popularly used in situations where aggressive mortgage lenders and brokers did not want any trouble qualifying otherwise non-qualifying loans, thus becoming a significant factor in the subprime lending crisis. A significant number of NINA loans were never possible for the applicant to repay and have resulted in defaults for this reason, as laid out in detail by investigative reporters, including the reporting of This American Life and Planet Money that culminated in the Peabody- and Polk- award-winning episode "The Giant Pool of Money."
No income, no job, no assets
No income, no job, no asset (or NINJA) is a more extreme form of NINA where loans can be issued to an individual with no income at all. The applicant only needs to show a credit rating, which is presumed to reflect willingness and ability to pay. NINJA loans are very low-quality subprime loans. The term was popularized by Charles R. Morris in his 2008 book The Two Trillion Dollar Meltdown, though the acronym had been publicly used by some subprime lenders earlier. NINJA loans were especially prominent during the U.S. housing bubble of 2003–2007 and became notorious during the subprime mortgage crisis in 2007–2008 as an example of poor lending practices. It works on two levels – as an acronym; and as an allusion to the fact that NINJA loans are often defaulted on, with the borrower disappearing like a ninja.
The term was also popularized in the 2010 US film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps by the character Gordon Gekko played by Michael Douglas.
The public source identifies “No income, no asset” as mortgage lending concept. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around income, asset and mortgage.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “No income, no asset”, the useful work is to connect “mortgage lending concept” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2694709. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2008, 2003, 2007 and 2010.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “No income, no asset”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow No income, no asset primary sources, No income, no asset archive and income research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “No income, no asset”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “No income, no asset” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.