She is seeking “reasonable offers” for the plots her stepfather purchased for $100 each in the 1950s and that now retail for $5,195 each. Would-be buyers have responded with transparent ruses that attempt to con her into sending money back to overseas addresses, Bogrand said. “I listed them online in January and all I have gotten is scam e-mails,” she said. She is trying to sell two lots at Chicago’s Rosehill Cemetery for her mother, who lives in Springfield and doesn’t want them. “I’m paying $5.95 a month, and I’m thinking this is not getting me anywhere,” said Bogrand, of University Place, Wash. Be prepared to negotiate, he said, and to wait one to six months for a buyer.ĭebra Bogrand has hit the six-month point online, and she’s giving up. Martin, who charges $5.95 a month to advertise, said he tells resellers to contact the cemeteries to determine current pricing for comparable plots, which can range from hundreds to many thousands of dollars, and offer them at 30 percent to 40 percent off. The Web sites have a variety of business models: charging a monthly advertising fee, taking a percentage of the advertised or sales price, or some combination, Fells said. Neither the Illinois Comptrollers Office, which regulates cemeteries, nor the real estate brokerage regulators cover these operations. Such brokerages are unregulated in most states. “What’s new is the Internet,” Fells said. He tells them cemeteries occasionally do buy back the plots, but historically there have been three options: Advertise in newspapers or notify local churches that the graves are available, give or sell them to family members, or donate them to a recognized charity that would give them to needy recipients. “I get calls every day from consumers who have unwanted cemetery property to sell,” said Fells. What to do with surplus plots is a problem, he said. His industry doesn’t keep data but Fells said there never has been a grave-site shortage. Robert Fells, external chief operating officer for the International Cemetery and Funeral Association, a trade group in Sterling, Va., said the notion of buying multiple plots took off in the 1920s, when cemeteries promoted the idea that land would become scarce and expensive as the population grew. The Cremation Association of North America projects that by 2010, 36 percent of all deaths will result in cremation, up from 27 percent in 2001. And they might harbor other notions of a final resting place, or forgo burial in favor of cremation, which the industry says has become increasingly popular. Now, their Baby Boomer offspring find themselves spread across the country - perhaps divorced, remarried, with stepchildren. He and others in the industry say geography plays the leading role in an increasingly common resale scenario: Decades ago Mom and Dad bought half a dozen or more grave sites, envisioning a family plot to accommodate multiple generations.
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