Building materials retailers lost turnover in the third quarter.

Sales in comparable units fell by 0.7 percent. This is shown in the Building Materials Index from the trade organization Byggmaterialhandlarna.

Adjusted for price changes and then expressed in fixed prices (volume development), the decline was -4.6 percent.

Accumulated for the first three quarters of the year, a decline of -7.0% in current prices and 10.2% in fixed prices has been noted.

"We are confident that the market is slowly but surely moving in the right direction, even if the development is taking longer than we had hoped. The Riksbank's change in monetary policy is now starting to make an impact, and we can see that both construction starts of new homes and the turnover and prices of existing homes are slowly starting to rise," says Monica Björk, CEO of Byggmaterialhandlarna.

As for consumer sales, they did not show the turnaround that was hoped for.

"During the late summer, however, we can see signs of a change to positive, albeit relatively weak, growth figures on both a monthly and quarterly basis," writes Byggmaterialhandlarna.

The overall price change, expressed as the Construction Trade Price Index, shows an accumulated price increase of 3.2 percent for the year.

"At the same time, the fourth quarter of last year was record weak and there is therefore an expectation that the fourth quarter will show continued recovery," the organization writes.