Via the AFR come hopeful retailers:
Like-for-like (LFL) sales growth at retailers ranging from Beacon Lighting and Nick Scali to JB Hi-Fi, Harvey Norman and Bunnings came off the boil in the fourth quarter of the 2018 financial year and analysts expect conditions to become even more challenging in 2019 as the housing downturn gathers pace and consumers become more cautious.
“We would hope that renovation activity would start to pick up,” Mr Robinson [Beacon] said. “But we have seen through other cycles that when housing prices in cities do start to pull back a little bit people do tend to start to move into renovations and redecorations. We haven’t seen that just yet, but we’ll be looking forward to seeing more of that.”
