Dead Neighbors Enhance Property Value

Jeremy Peters, Crypts Near Civil Rights Hero Now Command a Premium, NY Times, March 12, 2006, reports the following:

How much should it cost to spend eternity near the woman responsible for the seminal moment in the civil rights movement? The Woodlawn Cemetery [in Detroit], where Rosa Parks and members of her family are entombed, says $60,000.

That is now the cost of the seven crypts — priced last year at $45,000 to $50,000 each — that are closest to Mrs. Parks.

More than three dozen other crypts in the outer hall of the newly renamed Rosa L. Parks Freedom Chapel are being offered at $24,275 each, up from $17,000 to $20,000 before Mrs. Parks was entombed.

In death, as in life, the old real estate adage “location, location, location” apparently holds true.

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Funeral industry experts said, however, that it was highly unusual to charge a premium for burial spots near someone famous.