Firstly I will re-emphasis that I don't think we should give too...

Firstly I will re-emphasis that I don't think we should give too much significance to the reno sector, as it comprises only about 12% of the entire residential sector.

Secondly, I'm pretty sure the official stats on "reno activity" do not actually capture all reno activity (I can't see how it could). This might help explain why the HBG retail sales do not seem to correlate all that strongly with the reno activity.

Finally, the numbers in the square brackets are real per capita growth numbers. So they are derived after subtracting population growth as well as CPI increases. So for instance, if we have real per capita growth of -0.7% (ie contraction) in a period in which population growth is +1.6%, then that implies real total growth of +1.6%-0.7% = +0.9%. If CPI had averaged 2.5% in that same period, then the total nominal growth will have been +0.9%+2.5% = 3.4%.