Tips to Sell Cemetery
Plots for Sale when You're Asking;
"We aren't Getting any Nibbles.
We Really Want to Sell Our Cemetery Plots.
Any Advice?"
This question is one many ask every day and it is why The Cemetery Registry Multiple Listing Services have become so important to sellers today. You and all Sellers must remember one thing, you nor our company or service can force a sale nor do we have much to say about marketing a property at a Cemetery.
The responsibility for the positive or negative marketing and subsequent sale of any cemetery property falls chiefly on the shoulders of the Cemetery itself. It is their perception and their marketing of their facility that either generates interest or not in property there.
You nor us can do much more than we are doing, putting our property in front of the buying public at a reasonable price waiting for that inevitable buyer who needs what we have for sale.
Constantly reducing the price beyond being at a fair amount does little to move a buyer one way or the other as Cemetery property is rarely bought because some has a great sale price.
Cemetery property is bought, in a majority of cases, for one reason and one reason only, a loved one died today and burial property must be bought now. Nothing in recent years has changed this reality and there is nothing that leads us to believe it will change in the near future.
What you ensure when your Cemetery Property is officially Registered, priced properly and available to the public via your listing in the Cemetery Registry MLS is that you have taken the most intelligent step in the very unusual Cemetery marketplace, if you expect to sell with a reasonable chance of success. Keep in mind, if your Cemetery is well thought of and popular in its market, it just is a matter of time and patience to your selling.
When our Cemetery property was bought no one gave thought that someday we may have to or wish to sell. We didn't consider the Cemetery's presences in the marketplace nor its ability to promote itself. We bought because it was pretty, it was convenient, our family had ties to it in some way and a myriad of other personal reasons only the buyer of the property could know.
Now we, as a seller, have a valuable property that we can't seem to get interest in the time frame we want or for financial need.
The problem is the Cemetery market doesn't work on any buy and sell platform, most people know or are used to, such as how home, auto, furniture or any other major secondary marketplace operates. It works only under one criteria, need. Need that someone has to be buried soon and property has to be found to satisfy this need.
Only a few places will even be considered in the search for this property and only a short period of time will be spent seeking out offers. Our property has to be there at that crucial time, with the right price and the correct type of property if we are going to have a chance, at all, of getting the sale instead of the Cemetery, which is always available to purchase from for the Buyer.
How do we expedite one sale over another in such a marketplace? Every major corporation, with Cemeteries and Funeral Homes in the USA, would like the answer to that question. It would mean they would have found the magic bullet to the Death Care business. Fortunately for you and us, they haven't. It still is a sale of patience requiring the right time, the right buyer and the right price.
You have the best of both worlds with your current marketing. You have the most visible market by market system in the USA to promote your offer and the only real people marketing team of all the services you could choose from in picking The Cemetery Registry.
One of the main reasons our fees are what they are, one registration fee and a stay Registered until sold guarantee, is because we understood from the first day we conceived this system that even the most powerful and market savvy of the major corporations, running the Cemetery Marketplace in the USA, could not spend their way to more sales, economically, and stay in business.
What you have to do to sell is be visible all the time. Have someone consistently working to make sure your property is given consideration, whenever the opportunity for a sale is present, and to keep doing this at a cost that doesn't make it economic suicide to keep promoting. This is what you have in your association with The Cemetery Registry.
Specifically, here are some things Sellers should consider at all times during their marketing program to sell the property:
- Make sure they have a price in their promotional material and detail of their offer, as most buyers will bi-pass non-priced offers.
- They should keep their price below the current Cemetery cost for comparable property, rule of thumb is 75% to 85% of current cemetery pricing.
- Stay visible somewhere, preferably a high profile vehicle like the Cemetery Registry where fees are not charged based on length of time needed until a sale is made.
- All local Funeral Directors in the area have a written copy of the offer and how to contact the seller.
- Local Clergy, Estate Attorney & Accounting firms and Social Service providers have a written copy of the offer and how to contact the seller.
- Local bulletin boards at Grocery and Drugs stores should be posted and checked periodically to make sure posting remains.
- All local Funeral Directors in the area have a written copy of the offer and how to contact the seller
Although the above won't do much if the Cemetery itself does no promotion or is not well thought of by the local population, at least the seller will be doing everything to raise and keep their individual offer visible in the market.
For some additional thoughts please take a look at these article and information treatises we have available at one of our websites:
We know selling can be a frustrating process, particularly if it goes on for a long time. Telling you that you are not alone is probably not going to assuage you frustration but it is the truth in more cases than those who sell quickly or have a lot of active buyer contact. Cemetery property is not bought and sold like anything else people are used to buying and selling.
We never bought Cemetery property with the thought that someday we might want to sell it, so most of us don't think of all those marketing questions that we might when we buy a home or an automobile. Things like; Is this location a good one if I have to sell? Am I buying what others would love to buy if I decided to sell? Am I buying what others wanted to but couldn't because I did? etc.
We bought because it was what we thought of for us and our family. It may have been the most obscure Cemetery in the town or small and not a commercial enterprise always marketing buying cemetery property at that location. We were not concerned with salability as much as solving a concern we had for the loved ones who would have to make this decision under terrible conditions if we didn't do it for them.
We do the right thing and take care of this for our family. Things change and we end up having to sell what we never thought we would ever have to or want to but we do.
We know it can be frustrating but the business of selling cemetery property is not like selling anything else. Please remember the likelihood of your or any of our client's property selling like an automobile, furniture, appliance or any of the myriad of items individuals sell or you see being auctioned on EBay is not probable.
It is why we, unlike most other listing services, either on the Internet or other types of selling assistance services, don't ever charge more fees to continue to stay registered. We know the Cemetery selling process is sometimes long and frustrating and all the money in the world thrown at a listing won't change the fact of how your cemetery property will likely be sold in the long run. This is why we don't try to fool our clients that it is otherwise.
80% of all Cemetery Property is sold under one and only one circumstance and that is a death that day. This death will require a Cemetery Plot at the Cemetery you have your property at and if you are found as having a way for the family or Funeral Director to know you have such property you will probably sell it.
This need to be visible at all times somewhere where a family or Funeral Director knows to look for property is why we have the Cemetery Registry and hopefully why you are registered there. It is why we don't charge clients renewal fees or run it like a newspaper classified vehicle. That would be unfair to our clients as it would indicate cemetery property is sold like furniture or autos and having a good price or a bigger ad would sell it faster. Cemetery property sales doesn't work that way and never has.
We know selling Cemetery Property can be daunting, take too long and generally be frustrating to anyone trying it. We can tell you Registering with the Cemetery Registry is the right first step. If you would like to know so please take a look at some of the Testimonials from Seller who did Register and how their property got sold. Here is a link to some of them:
TESTIMONIALS & SELLER
COMMENTS
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