Help with Selling Price for TV?

Price of 2 graves in Forest Home Cemetery,Forest Park,IL-need help selling them

• I am trying to find out what the current price of two graves I own in Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois are worth today. I bought them 36 years ago and need to know what they would cost if I bought them today. I want to sell them at close to current price and am willing to pay anyone $300.00 if they will help me to sell them or refer someone to me who would be interested in buying them.

• Answer:

  Hi Cuducha-ga, You?re certainly not alone! As people move around, whether for a better climate or to be near family, they often find that arrangements they might have made years ago for their final resting place are no longer appropriate for their current needs. Perhaps you?re among that company, or you may have some other reason altogether for selling the burial plots you bought so long ago. Whatever your reason, you?ll be glad to know there are a good number of resources that can provide you with some useful assistance in selling off your unwanted cemetery plots. As you are already aware, setting an attractive selling price will entail knowing what those plots are worth today. Forest Home Cemetery does not have a website, but I found contact information for it on Switchboard.com ( http://www.switchboard.com ), i.e. Forest Home Cemetery 863 South Des Plaines Avenue Forest Park, IL 60130 Phone: 708-366-1900 So first of all, I called the number, and asked the person who answered the phone what the current rate is for a plot. There is apparently quite a range of prices, depending on what section of the cemetery the plot is in. At first she did not want to give me any pricing information without more details. However, she did finally allow as how the prices have just gone up, and that the current prices range from the cheapest plot at $1,000 to the most expensive at over $1,600. She did say, though, that if you wanted to get a more exact estimate on the current list value of your specific plots, you would need to call the cemetery yourself and give them your name so they could find the location of your plots. She also did, of course, confirm that you will have to sell the plots yourself, as the cemetery does not do buy-backs or offer any type of assistance with that. In addition, since you speak of ?graves? rather than plots, I should mention the cemetery representative also said that 1) it is very difficult to sell individual spaces in a family plot, and 2) if there are headstones already in place, you would have to either sell those too, or pay for the cost of having them removed, as the cemetery will not do that either, and it could affect the cost of the plots. I am assuming that no one is currently buried in the graves ? if I am wrong, please correct me in a ?Request for Clarification? as that is another matter altogether! ============================================================================== In addition to calling the cemetery, however, there is another measure of value you can also check into, and that is to find out what similar plots are currently selling for on the resale market. Fortunately, I was able to find two sources that had listings of plots for sale in Forest Home Cemetery. The first is at the Final Arranagements Network online Cemetery Registry. This listing is for Section 61 ?Garden of the Chapel,? and says the current list price is $900 for one plot. Their selling price is $800. See here (scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the listing): http://64.235.234.178/listInx_Choose/zlist.php?state=Illinois&city=Forest%20Park&cem=Forest%20Home%20Cemetery The second listing is at Grave Solutions, which offers a package of four plots, also in Section 61. This listing, however, quotes a list price of $2800 for all four, and is offering them for $2400, or $600 each, which is considerably lower than the above listing. See here: http://www.gravesolutions.com/ViewListings/SiteDescription.asp?SiteSysId=3361 So taking into consideration the current price range at the cemetery, and the prices that plots are currently being offered at resale, you ought to be able to come up with a reasonably attractive selling price. ============================================================================== Then, your challenge lies in how to go about selling them. There are professionals called ?Cemetery Brokers? who are licensed in some states, and who can help you to sell you plots for a fee, or a percentage of the cost, in much the same way as a real estate agent will help you sell your house. Here is a list of some cemetery brokers, many of whom can/will help you regardless of where your plot is located: -California Cemetery Brokers (Northern California): http://www.cemetery-brokers.com/main.html -Cemetery Brokers of America (Florida): http://www.cemeterybrokers.com/ -Cemetery Brokerage (North Carolina): http://cemeterybrokerage.com/ -Cemlot: $25 down, $75 with return of notarized papers and documents. Add?l. Sale transaction charges of $150.00 plus 5% of the net profit of each sale. http://www.cemlot.com/ -John M. Harris Co. - CemeteryBrokers.com (California): http://www.cemeterybroker.com/ -You can search for a list of licensed California cemetery brokers here: http://www2.dca.ca.gov/pls/wllpub/wllqryna%24lcev2.startup?p_qte_code=CEB&p_qte_pgm_code=2100 ============================================================================== However, since brokers? fees can be rather high, many people choose to sell their plots themselves, and there are a number of sites online that are set up to help you do just that. Although many of these also charge a fee, the costs are generally lower than the amount you?d pay to a broker, and here too there is a range. Here are some sites where you can list your plots for sale, together with information about their services and fees. They?re listed alphabetically, so be sure to browse the list to see the variety of fees and services offered: ADVANCED DIRECTIVE PLANNERS (United Memorial Society) Free listing http://cemetery.cc/ http://cemetery.cc/testform.php BURIAL PLOTS RESALE $25 per month, or one-time $99 until sold. http://www.burialplotsresale.com/form.html BURIAL PLOTS.com $47 for one ad for one year, includes one photo. If property sells, you can edit the ad to sell another. http://www.burialplots.com/ THE CEMETERY REGISTRY (The Final Arrangements Network) $59.95 Standard registration, list until sold; $79.95 ?Absolutely Private? registration with email and internet privacy protection, also list until sold. http://thecemeteryregistry.com/ http://www.finalarrangementsnetwork.com/ CEMETERY SALES Free 30-day individual listing; after that upgrad to $39.95 for 1-year; plus more costly plans for resellers. http://www.cemeterysales.com/signup.phtml?Type=Individual#freelisting http://www.cemeterysales.com/signup.phtml eCEMETERY PLOTS 60 words, $60 for six months, or 60 words, $100 for one year http://www.ecemeteryplots.com/index.cfm CLICK FUNERAL HOME Free listings for cemetery plots, offered as a service. Current listing includes plots from all over the U.S. http://www.clickfuneralhome.com/lots.htm GRAVES4SALE $29 for a regular ad; $34 for a featured ad. Up to 4 images allowed (300pixels wide by 200 pixels high, max file size 50kbs), ad remains until sold or up to 2 years maximum. http://www.graves4sale.com/ THE PLOT EXCHANGE. $70 for one ad, 40 words maximum, until sold up to 1 year. http://www.plotexchange.com/ THE PRE-PLANNING NETWORK $19.95 for one ad, two-year maximum. http://www.preplannet.com/cemlotssale.htm SENIOR CITIZENS.COM $10 per month, or $25 for three months. Submit ads by email, including name and address of the cemetary, where the plots are located within the cemetery, how much you are asking for the plots, and how you would like to be contacted. More info and sample ads here: http://www.seniorcitizens.com/cemetery/il.html ============================================================================== And then, in addition to the sites that specialize in this type of sale, i.e. cemetery plots, there are other, more generic sites you might want to consider as well. EBAY This is the first one that comes to mind, as it has a huge potential market base. They actually have a category for cemetery plots, and to list and sell one in the $1000 range would cost about $4.80 to list, plus about $28 final value fee. There would be additional costs for inserting more than one picture, adding a gallery listing, or ?Buy it Now? feature, etc. Ebay?s formulas are a bit complex, so here?s a link to their fees page: http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html And here?s a link to a search return showing current cemetery plot listings: http://listings.ebay.com/Funeral-Cemetery_Cemetery-Plots_W0QQcatrefZC6QQcatrefZC6QQfrisZ2QQfromZR10QQfsooZ1QQfsopZ1QQftrtZ1QQftrvZ1QQftsZ2QQsacatZ88741QQsocmdZListingItemListQQssPageNameZWD9S Then, there are a few other online classified sites I found that do have cemetery plot listings, and are free to advertise: US FREE ADS http://www.usfreeads.com/_miscellaneous/everything-else.asp http://www.usfreeads.com/206044-cls.html BUY/SELL COMMUNITY http://www.buysellcommunity.com/ CLASSIFIED ADS http://www.classifiedads.com/realestate_special_purpose_other-ad402408.htm ============================================================================== My suggestion would be, depending of course on how much of a hurry you are in to sell, to consider listing your plots yourself first, using one or more of the free listing opportunities. If nothing happens in a month, then try the lower-cost options, and on up to and including the more costly services such as hiring a broker. If you do decide to list your plots yourself, I?d suggest you browse existing ads to see which ones you find attractive. Then copy what you like, tailoring the details, of course, to your own situation. In addition, if you list on a site that allows pictures, and you don?t have any of your own, or would like to include a generic picture or map of the cemetery, here are a couple of sites that have pictures of Forest Home Cemetery. (To save a picture, just put the cursor on the picture, click the right mouse button, and then click ?Save Picture as ....? or ?Save Image as ...? and save it to a location on your computer.) General pictures, description and history of Forest Home, map and pictures of graves: http://www.graveyards.com/IL/Cook/foresthome/ Photo of the front gate, and two maps: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pif&CRid=105696&PIcrid=105696&PIMode=cemetery&ShowCemPhotos=Y& Some info on the cemetery?s history and some famous people buried there from the Forest Park Historical Society: http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:4jMNv7QFLGEJ:www.forestpark.net/forest_park.html+%22forest+home+cemetery%22++IL+-milwaukee+-wisconsin+-wi+-iowa&hl=en ============================================================================== I hope this information will prove to be of help to you in selling your burial plots. As you can see, most of the options given should cost you much less than the amount you said you were prepared to spend, so I am hoping you will find at least one or several of them to your liking. If anything isn?t clear, or any of the links don?t work, please use the ?Request for Clarification? feature to ask for help before rating and closing your question, as I want to be sure you?re happy with your answer and feel you?ve found the help you need to be able to sell your cemetery plots. Best wishes, Byrd-ga Search strategy: As stated above, first I made a telephone call to the cemetery. Then, I searched the web, using a variety of search terms. Those that yielded the best results were: [?forest home cemetery? IL] [buy sell plots ?forest home cemetery? il] [cemetery broker OR brokers] [sell ?cemetery plots? OR ?burial plots? OR graves OR ?grave sites?] In addition, I searched Ebay for cemetery plots, as well as looked on several other online classified sites I had in my personal bookmarks. +