For all those hoping the industry would start of 2011 with a big month in volume, sorry, it didn’t happen.

Reverse mortgage lenders endorsed 6,464 HECM units in January, down 1.4% from the month before and 15.3% lower from January 2010 according to Reverse Market Insight.  The number of active lenders fell 34.5% from last year, but resulted in an a net average number of reverse mortgages per lender increase of 29.5%.

“While there were 18.9% more active lenders in January compared to December, the overall trend continues to show more production per lender,” said John Lunde, President of RMI.

Reverse mortgage volume continues to stay relatively flat or one might say consistent, which isn’t always the case.  However, RMI still thinks a strong application surge towards the end of 2010 means growth is right around the corner.

“The last three months of 2010 each showed an increase of 1,300 or more applications, which should translate into growth of 1,000 or more endorsements per month as they start showing up,” they said.

RMI continues to feel 2011 will see volume trend up, but “if it’s going to be special we’ll need to see application volumes back above 10,000 per month.”

For the full report, see here.