No income, no asset (NINA) is a term used in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

mortgage industry to describe one of many documentation types which lenders may allow when

underwriting Underwriting (UW) services are provided by some large financial institutions, such as banks, insurance companies and investment houses, whereby they guarantee payment in case of damage or financial loss and accept the financial risk for liability ...

mortgage A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law (legal system), civil law jurisdictions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners t ...

. A loan issued under such circumstances may be referred to as a NINA loan or NINJA loan. 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 ''This American Life'' is a weekly hour-long American radio program produced in collaboration with Chicago Public Media and hosted by Ira Glass. It is broadcast on numerous public radio stations in the United States and internationally, and is ...

'' and '' Planet Money'' that culminated in the Peabody- and Polk- award winning episode " The Giant Pool of Money."

No income, no job, no assets ("NINJA")

A NINJA loan is a nickname for very low-quality

subprime loans In finance, subprime lending (also referred to as near-prime, subpar, non-prime, and second-chance lending) is the provision of loans to people in the United States who may have difficulty maintaining the repayment schedule. Historically, subpr ...

. It was a play on NINA, which in turn is based on the notation scheme for the level of documentation the mortgage originator required. It was described as a no income, no job, ndno assets loan because the only thing an applicant had to show was his/her credit rating, which was presumed to reflect willingness and ability to pay. 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 mortgage lenders for some years. They were especially prominent during the

United States housing bubble The 2000s United States housing bubble or house price boom or 2000s housing cycle was a sharp run up and subsequent collapse of house asset prices affecting over half of the U.S. states. In many regions a Real-estate bubble, real estate bubb ...

circa 2003-2007 but have gained wider notoriety due to the

subprime mortgage crisis The American subprime mortgage crisis was a multinational financial crisis that occurred between 2007 and 2010, contributing to the 2008 financial crisis. It led to a severe economic recession, with millions becoming unemployed and many busines ...

in July/August 2007 as a prime example of poor lending practices. The term grew in usage during the 2008 financial crisis as the sub prime mortgage crisis was blamed on such loans. It works on two levels – as an acronym; and allusion to the fact that NINJA loans are often defaulted on, with the borrower disappearing like a

ninja A , or was a spy and infiltrator in pre-modern Japan. The functions of a ninja included siege and infiltration, ambush, reconnaissance, espionage, deception, and later bodyguarding.Kawakami, pp. 21–22 Antecedents may have existed as ear ...

. The term was also popularized in the 2010 US film '' Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps'' by the character

Gordon Gekko Gordon Gekko is a composite character in the 1987 film '' Wall Street'' and its 2010 sequel '' Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps'', both directed by Oliver Stone. Gekko was portrayed in both films by actor Michael Douglas, who won the Academy A ...

played by

Michael Douglas Michael Kirk Douglas (born September 25, 1944) is an American actor and film producer. He has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the ...

References

External links

{{"'No Money Down' Falls Flat"

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

''Why Did So Many People Make So Many Ex Post Bad Decisions? The Causes of the Foreclosure Crisis'', Working Paper 2012-7, May 2012, prepared for the conference "Rethinking Finance: New Perspectives on the Crisis"; Christopher L. Foote, Kristopher S. Gerardi, and Paul S. Willen
Mortgage industry of the United States United States housing bubble

No income, no job, no assets ("NINJA")

See also

References

External links