Selling Graves You Will Not Use

It is possible to sell graves/plot/interment spaces, outer burial container vaults, opening and closing interment fees that you will not be using.  Be prepared to have some patience.  It takes some time to sell cemetery property but it can be done and it is perfectly above-board and legal.  Almost all cemeteries will not buy your graves.  You may not want to hear this but you will most likely have to sell your cemetery property at a deep discount to what the cemetery charges currently.  You can try to sell whatever you own at whatever price you can get.  If you can get $10,000 per grave, great!  But most likely if you are trying to sell your graves at a price near to the cemetery price you will likely be disappointed that the graves have not sold and probably they will not sell.  My experience is that you will be able to sell your graves for about 20% of what the cemetery charges.  So if you inherited the graves that might be OK.  But graves are typically not a source of quick cash, of easy money, unfortunately.  Once you do find a buyer it is pretty simple to effect the transfer.  There may be a transfer fee.

Check out my prior blogs here, and check out Twitter.com/@deathternity.  email me a deathternity@gmailcom.  I am happy to talk to you about the above and to help you if you wish.  There could be some fee depending on my involvement.

Costs of Funeral Homes and Cemeteries

I saw an ad on television today stating that the average cost for a funeral now is $9,000.00.  That's a little more than I thought.  And that does not include cemetery costs which run probably about another $9,000 and up per person.  So that is about $18,000.00 and up PER PERSON!  That's a lot of money and most people are shocked when they figure this out which is usually AFTER someone has died.  These things can be preplanned and prepaid (and financed) while people are alive.  Most people put this on the back burner and do not want to think about it.  Aside from the money there is the emotional part of death.  It is very difficult to figure out the details of the above while you are grieving.  It is a great gift to your survivors to do the above yourself and not leave it to your loved ones.  Cremation can definitely be a much lower cost option.  But why not consider buying your cemetery arrangements from someone who owns graves that they will not use.  You can buy these graves at about 20% of what you would pay the cemetery.  Often these graves include outer burial container vaults and opening and closing interment fees.  Pass these saving to your survivors, a charity, your church, etc.  I am happy to talk to anybody about how easy it is to do this.  Email me at deathternity@gmail.com.  And check out @deathternity on Twitter.

Female Funeral Directors

When you choose your funeral home, your final arrangements, who you choose and what you choose is very personal.  These days most funeral directors are male, and the average age is about 60.  There is a smaller and younger demographic developing of female funeral directors.  They tend to talk to and know one another as their numbers are small.   Many people that I have talked to feel that most of the male funeral directors they have dealt with are arrogant, expensive and that they really have little empathy for the survivors.  Maybe we perceive this when we are grieving.  Maybe having a know-it-all male funeral director helps us get through a funeral.?  To paraphrase a pithy phrase a lot of people think that if women ran the world that the world would be a better place, now and in the past.  So there is some thinking that female funeral directors would be and are more caring and understanding.

Cemeteries in the Marcellus Shale Region of Western PA

Recently a number of cemeteries, including the Catholic Cemeteries Association cemeteries, in the Marcellus Shale region of southwestern Pennsylvania have signed leases with gas drillers.  Some of these cemeteries are in Allegheny County which is where the city of Pittsburgh is located.  Urban drilling?  The cemeteries claim that they will not permit the drillers to drill in developed sections of any cemetery.  The drillers will only be allowed to drill in not yet developed areas of cemeteries.  Think about that.  Do you think your buried loved ones would like that proximity.  How will the survivors of those buried find that acceptable.  Presumably all of the money from the leases goes to the cemeteries, not to the owners of the graves.  How much money is involved and who benefits from this money.  What will the cemeteries do with the money?  Probably buyers of graves did not have something like this in mind when they bought their graves.  My understanding is that un-/non-developed sections of cemeteries can only be used eventually for burial purposes.?

Municipal/Public Burial Fees Surging

Speaking of the now and the future of cemeteries:

Many municipalities across the U.S. own their own cemeteries.  Typically their fees are relatively reasonable.  But that is changing quickly.  Given the poor economy many municipalities are raising their prices for these cemeteries, often dramatically.  This is painful for those who use these cemeteries.  As an FYI, relative to many urban cemeteries these municipal cemetery fees are still often much much lower than their urban for profit corporate cemeteries.  For profit cemeteries typically have, and have had, at least one price increase a year across the board for all of their different fees:  cost of graves/crypts/lawn crypts/cremation interment options, opening and closing of the grave, etc. interment fee, outer burial container vaults, memorialization, etc.  They are very good at raising prices, partly to pay for sales commissions to cemetery representatives, and to pay for their layers of management/stock options, etc.

The Future of Burial

Today I saw a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal for I-Memorial and I-Tomb.  They are both offered by the same company.  They are really virtual memorialization online for the dead; perhaps a virtual cemetery of sorts.  Is this a good idea or not?  Again it's personal.  For many we remember and honor our deceased loved ones' spirits in our minds.  The two I's will probably find some interest with a fair number of people.  I am not sure how much they cost.  Some people will always like to have a physical place to visit to remember their deceased loved ones.  Some people will never visit a cemetery.  Some will choose the I's as a way to remember.  I-Tomb is for people already deceased.  Survivors can arrange online memorials.  I-Memorial is for those who are still living.  The living can arrange how they would like to be remembered themselves.  Apparently this includes leaving passwords, etc. for bank accounts, online accounts, etc. so that your survivors won't have to struggle figuring these things out.  Right now this is a big problem with email, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

It's Personal: What to do With Your Body When You Die

What you decide to do with your body after death is very personal.  Cremation?  Full body burial in a grave with a casket.  Would you like to be interred aboveground in a crypt or mausoleum?  Everyone has their own decisions to make.  Go online or to the library and look up the Capuchin Catacombs in Italy.  It's worth your time as the pictures are compelling.  The catacombs were open from about the mid 1500s through the early 1900s.  People were placed in a variety of positions (sitting, standing, lying down, etc.) and they are in those positions to this day.  The clothes that they were interred in are in most cases still in pretty good condition.  Some look like they are ready for a conversation with you today.
 The actor Larry Hagman (the TV show Dallas) says that "he would like his body to be scattered over a field and have marijuana and wheat planted and harvest it in a couple of years and then have a big marijuana cake, enough for 200 to 300 people.  People would eat a little Larry".
So it's very personal and it's up to you to decide.  It would be kind of you to decide so that your survivors do not have to make that difficult (for them) decision.

Please contact me here with any thoughts, comment, questions or at deathternity@gmail.com.  You might also like to take a look at funny/odd/different epitaphs on Twitter at #deathternity.

The Future of Burial

How we bury our love ones now is the same thing humans have been doing for thousands of years:  cremation, full body or cremation burial in the ground, full body or cremation above ground in crypts, mausoleums, niches, etc.  What will the future bring?  I don't see any major changes on the horizon.  Will cryogenics (freezing of bodies for future re-use) become not only affordable but acceptable?  There was some thought recently to start burying bodies vertically, that is standing up, instead of horizontally.  But that idea never got anywhere because people want to be laid to rest, not standing up like in a phone booth for eternity.  There is so far a small movement towards green burial.  People are concerned about running out of real estate.  But America is a BIG country and so far there has been and looks like there will be for some time plenty of room for traditional burial in caskets here in America.  The number of people being cremated is increasing over time.  It is simpler and much less expensive than traditional burial but many people cannot stomach the idea.  But technology is expanding very rapidly, and America is a very dynamic country.  Things in the technology world seem to suddenly appear out of nowhere and suddenly they are everywhere:  iPhone, iPad, iPod, Skype, laptops, smartphones, etc., etc.  Laptop and desktop computers are really not that old and some people thought that computers would never develop into a mass market for all people.  So we'll see what the future brings for the deathcare industry.

Please feel free to contact me with any thoughts, comments or questions.  I can also be reached at deathternity@gmail.com.

Living to 100, and Beyond

As time passes people are living longer and longer.  When Social Security was started 65 was set as the age for distributions to begin because most people did not live to 65 then.  Now 65 is considered "young."  And we are often pretty healthy in old age.  Many doctors, etc. now think that within the next 50 to 100 years people will start living to 150, and that we will mostly be healthy.  Certainly technology is moving forward faster and faster, for the better I think.  This is leading to improvements in healthcare and medical technology all the time.  When we have physical/medical problems in the future we will go into the "shop" (hospital) and have parts replaced, just like our cars.  Even living to 150 though we will still die at some point.  So we will still need to think about what to do with our bodies when death does inevitably come.  It's selfish to leave this decision to our survivors.  There are currently over 1 million graves/interment spaces owned in America that people will never use for whatever reason.  This number will increase in the future.  Why not take advantage of this inventory.  As a buyer you can buy these graves at a severe discount.  As a seller you can get some money for these graves. Or you can donate them to those in need for a tax deduction.  I would be happy to answer any questions about the above.  Contact me here or at deathternity@gmail.com.  Here's to the future!

Donate Graves

If you own graves that you will not use and you are unable to find a buyer for them, you can donate them to a charity or nonprofit.  It is possible to find a buyer for graves you are trying to sell but it takes time and patience, and most likely you will have to sell them at a deep discount to the price that the cemetery charges.  It is perfectly fine and legal to sell or donate graves/interment spaces.  It's a pretty easy transfer as well.  If you donate graves to a non profit, you will receive a tax deduction based on the current value that the cemetery itself charges for the graves now.  So you will benefit from this depending on your own tax situation.  But apart from that if you are unable to sell graves, donation is an option to consider so that you can be done with the graves and thinking about them.  Plus there is the goodwill of getting the graves to those truly in need who cannot afford graves/interment spaces.  I would be happy to talk to anyone about how to effect a donation transfer.

Buying graves at a discount

There are over 1 million interment spaces owned nationwide by people who are not going to use them.  They may have inherited them.  They may not live near to where the graves are located.  For whatever reason the owners are not going to use them.  These graves can legally be bought.  It is perfectly fine and perhaps a good thing to do for the buyer.  The seller wants to sell them for as high a price as possible and the buyer wants to pay as low a price as possible.  The graves market is very illiquid.  There is no central exchange like there is for stocks with the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ, etc.  The price that seems to work is about 20% of what the local cemetery currently charges for graves they sell.  So you can buy interment spaces (in ground graves, above ground crypts, cremation interment options, etc.) at a deep deep discount to what you would pay the local cemetery when buying directly from it.  In urban areas where graves sell from $2500 to $7000 per grave and up, and 80% discount purchase price adds up to a lot of money.  The buyer is happy.  The seller gets to be done with something that is sitting uselessly around, and the cemetery gets to sell the buyer other things that would not be sold if the graves sat empty forever.

Preplanning one's death

Almost no one is prepared for death when it comes.  We do not know when death will come.  It is part of life and yet most people do not want to think about it and/or consider death.  It's off somewhere in the distant future.  So we put it on the back burner, the far back burner of life.  When death does occur the survivors are often overcome with grief.  It is very hard to think clearly.  We are not in any condition to shop around or comparison shop.  Only 28% of Americans have preplanned and/or prepaid for their final arrangements after death occurs.  For survivors therefore having to make the arrangements it is like learning a foreign language.  What would Mom want?  Cremation or full body burial in a casket?  Where would she like to be interred?  How would she like to be memorialized/remembered?  Which funeral home should we use?  Which cemetery?  And oh by the way who's going to pay for all of this, and how?  (Funeral home and cemetery costs combined now range from about $8000 to $20000 and up per person, potentially way up from that range.)   On an at need basis, that is if cemetery arrangements are bought after death occurs (if nothing has been preplanned/prepaid) cemeteries require that they be paid in full before interment can take place.  So preplanning is something to strongly consider.  Apart from financial considerations, it can save your survivors much emotional stress.  If you preplan then they can grieve.  Grieving itself is hard enough.  But it is a real gift to your survivors to make sure that they do not have to make your arrangement while grieving for you.

What to do When Someone Dies

When death occurs contact a funeral home as soon as possible.  It is the funeral home's responsibility to pick up the body and to then prepare the body for interment/cremation.  More and more across America families are choosing cremation.  It is a much much lower cost option than traditional burial/entombment (above ground interment in a crypt/mausoleum).  It is very personal whatever choice you choose.  If you choose traditional you have the cost of the viewing, the casket, the grave at the cemetery, an outer burial container vault for the grave that the casket goes into, the memorial/memorialization (flat bronze marker/headstone/gravestone), the interment fee (opening and closing of the grave).   A traditional full body interment can run around $15,000 per person minimum for the cemetery portion of the burial in and around urban areas.  And it can cost much much more.  This does not include the funeral home side of things.  That can be an additional $6,000 - $18,000 and up per person.  The cemetery side of cremation inurnment ranges from about $1500 - $6000 per person and up.

Deathternity

The purpose of Deathternity is to discuss all things possible about death, including the afterlife (eternity).  I will talk about death in general and death specifically (i.e.-death, grief, burial, cemeteries, funeral homes, etc.).  My attempt is to make people more comfortable thinking about death.  It is something that we have not found a way to avoid.  It is part of life whether we like it or not.
Further there are about 1 million owned graves in cemeteries in America that people will not use.  I would encourage people to begin thinking about either selling those graves and or buying those graves.  Or I would like to encourage people to donate the graves that they will not use to nonprofit organizations so that people in need can use the graves with little or no expense.