Schuckman Realty · Market Pulse
Seven Straight Months of Growth: What the April Retail Sales Numbers Mean for Long Island Landlords
Total retail sales rose 5.73% year-over-year in April — the seventh consecutive monthly gain. Beneath the headline, the categories driving the growth are the same ones soaking up second-generation space in Nassau and Suffolk.
The CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor released its April 2026 reading this week, and the headline is a quietly important one for anyone who owns, occupies, or finances neighborhood retail: U.S. retail sales grew for the seventh month in a row, despite higher gas prices and stickier-than-expected inflation. Core retail sales (excluding restaurants, auto dealers, and gas stations) rose 0.34% month-over-month and 5.53% year-over-year, while total core sales for the first four months of 2026 are tracking up roughly 6% year-over-year.
That is not a “consumer is rolling over” data print. It is a consumer-is-spending-differently print — and the difference matters more than the average.
The Category Breakdown
The story April tells is a barbell. Discretionary categories where the consumer chooses to engage — apparel, sporting goods, health and personal care — are running well above the headline. Big-ticket and home-improvement categories tied to housing transactions are flat to negative. Both ends of that barbell map directly to what we are seeing in Long Island leasing demand.
| Category | MoM (April) | YoY (April) |
|---|---|---|
| Clothing & accessories | +0.59% | +9.75% |
| Sporting goods, hobby, music, books | +0.12% | +8.55% |
| Health & personal care | +0.45% | +8.42% |
| Digital products | +1.11% | +8.09% |
| General merchandise | +0.15% | +6.19% |
| Electronics & appliances | +0.16% | +4.03% |
| Grocery & beverage | +0.36% | +3.21% |
| Furniture & home furnishings | −0.06% | +2.58% |
| Building & garden supply | +0.09% | −2.74% |
What This Means for Long Island Retail Real Estate
National macro data is interesting; what matters to a Hempstead landlord or a Huntington investor is whether these numbers translate into tenant demand on Sunrise Highway, Route 110, and Jericho Turnpike. Here is how we are reading it on the ground:
- Apparel and accessories at +9.75% YoY confirms what specialty leasing is showing. Off-price (Burlington, Ross, T.J. Maxx, Marshalls), athleisure, and value apparel concepts are the most active tour-and-LOI category in Nassau and Suffolk right now. If you have a 8,000–25,000 SF box, this is your primary demand pool — and it is paying real rent, not concession-laden rent.
- Health and personal care at +8.42% YoY is the medical-retail tailwind we keep flagging. Urgent care, dental DSOs, dermatology, optical, and IV/wellness concepts are not slowing down. They are absorbing the 2,500–6,000 SF endcaps and inline space that traditional service retail used to take.
- Grocery at +3.21% YoY looks modest — but volume matters more than rate. Grocery centers are the most defensible asset class on Long Island precisely because the dollars keep flowing through the door 52 weeks a year. Specialty grocers (Trader Joe’s, Lidl, ALDI) are still actively touring; conventional anchors are renewing at premium rents.
- Building & garden at −2.74% YoY is the housing-cycle signal. Home Depot and Lowe’s anchor positions are not at risk — but pad-site and adjacency tenants tied to home improvement (paint, flooring, decor) are negotiating harder. Underwrite this category with a cushion.
- Furniture flat-to-negative is the same story. Big-box furniture is where most of the available second-generation space on Long Island lives. The good news: backfill demand from medical, fitness, and off-price is more than absorbing it.
The Bigger Picture: Why Seven Months Matters
One month of growth is noise. Seven consecutive months of growth, layered on top of a tight tenant supply environment and a Long Island vacancy rate hovering in the low single digits, is a market structure. It means landlords are not negotiating against a “consumer is collapsing” narrative — they are negotiating against a “consumer is selective” reality. Selective consumers create selective tenants. Selective tenants want the best real estate.
For owners on Long Island, that is the leverage. Tenants with growing same-store sales and a clear category tailwind are the ones writing 10-year leases with bumps, not the ones asking for kick-out clauses and tenant improvement dollars they cannot justify.
What We Are Telling Clients This Week
If you are an owner: this is not the print that triggers a renegotiation of your loan covenants — and it is not the print that justifies a discount on a renewal. Hold the line on rent. If you are a buyer: the categories driving sales growth are also the categories driving cap rate compression in the trades we are tracking. The window to acquire grocery-anchored and medical-heavy strip on a 6-handle is narrowing. If you are a tenant: the operators expanding aggressively right now are the ones whose category is in this top half of the table. Lock in your real estate before your competitor does.
Let’s talk about your retail position
Whether you’re underwriting an acquisition, repositioning a center, or sourcing space for a growing concept, Schuckman Realty has been Long Island’s retail real estate specialist for over 60 years. We see every meaningful deal in this market — and we know what these national numbers actually mean for Nassau and Suffolk.