Mezarlık arsası fiyatları 2018 'den 2024' e % 65 arttı ve şimdi insanlar kâr için bunları tersine çevirmeye çalışıyor

Cemetery plot prices jumped 65% from 2018 to 2024, and now people are trying to flip them for profit

Becky Robertson

Wed, September 16, 2026 at 2:35 PM GMT+3 5 min read

In the early 2000s, house-flipping was the get-rich-quick trend that seemingly everyone with enough liquidity wanted to try their hand at. It was popularized by TV shows like Flip This House that showcased fixer-upper success stories and took viewers along for the ride.

Though the heyday ended with the 2008 housing crash, the practice was revived in the COVID-era housing lull and remains popular even now, despite not being as profitable as it once was given rising real estate, material, and labour costs. One way around those realities is to take advantage of the speculative nature of certain properties so a flip doesn't have to involve much renovation work (or any at all, if you're lucky).

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There's one particular, rather unexpected type of land that fits this bill, and which some people are now buying and reselling to make a quick buck.

Cemetery plot flipping may be a dark concept, but it's not all that surprising given the commodification of, well, everything, alongside people's desire to leverage anything they can in this economy.

It's sort of ideal, when you think about it: the demand for plots is persistent despite market conditions, supply is extremely limited, and a costly or DIY revamp isn't even possible. Not everyone will be a homeowner in their lifetime, but everyone's lifetime will end, and the 33% of Americans who opt for a traditional burial will need somewhere to rest when that happens.

Dying is big business

All of the many other expenses of dying aside, premium plots can run into the tens of thousands of dollars, with plot price jumps substantially exceeding general inflation in recent years and private cemeteries and crematories serving as a $4-billion industry.

As Wake Forest University Cemetery Law Professor Tanya Marsh told Freakonomics Radio back in 2024, "Cemeteries are just another real estate use, right? So if you're thinking about what's the use for a particular piece of land and how can I make money from it, cemeteries might be an option."

While owning a plot isn't the same as owning the land itself — it just entitles you to internment rights on real estate owned by the company, church, or government body that owns the cemetery — this type of deed is still highly coveted. Enough so to warrant an entire brokerage industry for buying and selling it.

Some brokerages position resting places as long-term, potentially lucrative asset investments, but also note their drawbacks. Bayer Cemetery Brokers, for example, highlights a 65% price appreciation of the property type between 2018 and 2024, while consumer inflation rose 25% in comparison.

The firm notes that while plots can and often do increase significantly in price over time because of how scarce they are, they are quite a niche market, especially when it comes to location, and can be difficult to sell if you're not willing to wait for the right buyer to come along.

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Not as easy of a win as some online suggest

Maureen Walton, founder and CEO of the Cemetery Exchange listing service, says about the same, adding that a "flip" in the classic sense of the word isn't at all realistic when it comes to plots.

"It takes too long, as they can take years to sell. I have listings on my site that are valid but have been for sale for years," she tells Moneywise.

While she notes that cemetery property does increase in value every year, there are caveats to how much can be earned on the secondary marketplace, as sales must adhere to state legislation and cemeteries' specific bylaws, which vary widely. Some companies insist on first right of refusal, some impose maintenance and/or transfer fees, and many forbid secondary listing prices to surpass their own retail price at the time of sale.

"That being said, a lot of the people selling cemetery property are selling [plots] that were acquired decades ago. Chances are great that what they sell it for is more than what they paid for it," Walton says. This is especially the case in situations when families inherit plots they may not have even known their loved ones had been sitting on for years.

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This article originally appeared on Moneywise.com under the title: Cemetery plot prices jumped 65% from 2018 to 2024, and now people are trying to flip them for profit

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