Publication: MSN Money
Author: Karen Datko
Date: August 25, 2009
Article Excerpt:
Even death can’t take a holiday from the great recession. Consider:
More people are selling family burial plots to cover living expenses (unlike the Beverly Hills woman who auctioned off a crypt above that of Marilyn Monroe — see below).
More people are dying broke and are cremated or buried at potter’s field — because their families are too strapped to help out. “This problem used to be unique to just indigents who either had no family or were living on the street or homeless,” P. Michael Murphy, the county coroner in Las Vegas, told Time. “We are now seeing folks expressing this concern who are recently unemployed or their house is in foreclosure ….”
No firm statistics are available on how many people are selling burial plots, but the number of for-sale-by-owner and plot brokerage Web sites is a good indication.