Property Crossroads - Real Estate Info

Fancy Living Near a Cemetery?

by Maricel Ferrer-Custodio on June 18th, 2007

We only have one earth to live. With our population continually growing; specially now that we have longer life spans, land is becoming more scarce. We’ve heard about animal habitats getting destroyed as what happened in the film "Over The Hedge". But  now, even the dead is competing for their land.   As new areas are converted into residential subdivisions and commercial centers, occasionally some if it has cemeteries included in the development. Some even dating back to the mid-19th century.

An example is the story of a developer in Georgia, USA; DAC Enterprises, who bought 118 acres of land for development. After buying the land, they did not realize that hiding beneath the bushes and trees was a cemetery.   The cemetery cost them around $40,000.  $5,000 for defining its grounds and fencing it off and $35,000 for not being able to sell that parcel of land.

This is not an isolated case.  According to this article in NY Times: New Homes Confront Old Burial Grounds

"The frequency, though, is growing, developers and archaeologists say, as subdivisions and retail centers spread across former farmland.  Developers often decide to built around old graves rather than move them, because it is usually cheaper, less complicated and less likely to upset the public."

Having burial grounds within your development does not come cheap, specially if you paid for that parcel of land not taking into account that a cemetery exists.  You have to absorb the costs of: paying premium price for the graveyard,  not being able to sell that land, incorporating the cemetery into the development and sometimes the responsibility of caring for it indefinitely.

Thus, some unscrupulous landowners just remove the headstones but not the bodies such as the story behind the movie "Poltergeist". In the film. the neighborhood becomes haunted because of the desecration of the graveyard by the developer.  The unknowing residents becomes the losers.

For those who are not superstitious, having your home beside a graveyard is no different from having your home beside a park.  However from an investor’s point of view, you have already decreased the salability of your house.  Instead of making it 100% sellable, now you have to exclude the percentage of people, who doesn’t want to live near a graveyard…that includes young families who have kids.  With all these scary stories and films about graveyards, it’s not surprising that most kids and even some adults are afraid to live near graveyards.

I have witnessed two graveyards relocated because of a commercial development.  The cemetery was in the middle of a commercial area that it doesn’t fit the development anymore. The value of the land had also increased that it  is too expensive to be used as a cemetery.  Both were public cemeteries in the Philippines.  The bodies were relocated into another land transformed into a public cemetery. If you can see the development now, it is hard to imagine that it used to be sites of public cemeteries because of the massive shopping complexes that were built on top of it.

Moreover, here in Sydney, Australia an old cemetery becomes a part of  a new residential development.  They called the area near the cemetery a "Heritage Square" to make it more appealing to residents instead of something to be scared of.  On one side of the cemetery there were townhouse developments, while on the other side; the building that used to be part of the cemetery was sold as a single residential dwelling. Some of the houses across and near the cemetery even sold in the range of $500,000 to $700,000 Australian Dollars.

But again, as an investor I would not recommend buying near a cemetery.  I would rather maximize the value of my property by catering to the majority of property buyers.  Special properties usually attract special people, in reality there are not many around.  Maybe during boom times, properties near cemeteries would still be sellable.  However, during bust times when there are many properties to choose from, it will be a bit more difficult to sell them.

How about you, would you fancy living near a cemetery?

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