Price: Calculated by Supply and Demand

April 29, 2026/Business, Cemetery, Cremation/

I’m not an economics major but I know that the price I can charge for my goods or services is somewhat dictated by the supply and demand of those goods and services. Is that true of cemetery space – everywhere?

When the price gets “too high” as determined by the intended consumer that consumer needs to look elsewhere for the purchase or become ingenius about how they solve the “price problem”.

The dilemma has led to interesting decisions in China where the country has recently banned the storage of cremated remains in otherwise un-used apartment units. This article from MSN will tell you that as of March 30 “China has enacted legislation banning the use of residential properties for storing cremated remains, also prohibiting burials outside designated cemeteries or approved ecological sites.”

In a nutshell here’s what the problem has been:

A “shoebox” size cemetery space has been priced at about 200,000 yuan ($ US 29,255)
That “shoebox” size space with an identification marker has been priced at about 300,000 yuan ($ US 43,883)
In “ghost cities” or “struggling apartment developments” in Beijing a 500 square foot apartment can be purchased for about $US30,000. That’s a small apartment as I just stepped-off our Minnesota home’s family room at 24 x 24 feet or 576 square feet. So, a complete apartment less than the size of my family room.
Finally, cemetery space must be re-newed and re-paid for every twenty years whereas apartment ownership can be for as long as 70 years in China before additional costs are incurred.

What has happened, because of these prices but also other issues such as an overbuilt supply of apartment units bringing those price down, is that people have purchased empty apartments for their loved ones cremated remains to reside in instead of purchasing cemetery property. It’s been done so much lately in China that the apartments have came to be known as “Bone Ash apartments”.

The new law puts a stop to the practice of Bone Ash apartments, but will create a dilemma for how Chinese survivors will care for their deceased loved ones memorializations.

According to this article titled “China cracks down on people storing their dead relatives in apartments” Chinese surviors are reserved in bringing the urns into their own homes because:

“Keeping remains in a living space is thought to bring “heavy energy” that can cause bad luck or illness for the living.”
“Dignity: Ancestors are viewed as still “living” in the afterlife. Giving them their own “home” with a front door and windows is considered the ultimate sign of respect.”

Part of the new law that has just taken effect includes:

Strict Zoning: Fines for owners using apartments as columbariums
Subsidized Funerals: Pushing “Green Burials” (sea or tree burials) to lower the demand for land.
Price Caps: Trying to rein in the “cemetery mafias” that have kept burial prices artificially high.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take: I actively look for news in the Death Care space and sometimes, like finding these articles, things that one could never dream up seem to pop up in the news. Of course, the Chinese culture is much different than the culture I grew up in in Minnesota so the dilemma is not something that was on my radar.

What to do about the issue for Chinese families who have lost loved ones will be the issue going forward. It’s a Death Care problem but a problem for a different nation and a different culture. And, it is not unlike some issues in South American countries where families have ever-increasingly opted for cremation over earth burial leaving, not the consumers in a dilemma, but the park-like cemetery operators who must perpetually maintain their cemeteries with the financial dilemma of fewer and fewer customers going forward.

In a bigger picture it’s one reason why I love American capitalism. In America, where free enterprise has historically been valued, some enterprising person would use these predicaments as the incentive for creating wealth for themself by generating a new and better idea for consumers to relate to.

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