Think Chinese Home Prices Are High? Try Buying a Grave
- Plots are 112,545 yuan/square meter, double a Shenzhen unit
- Fu Shou Yuan grave prices up 41% since first half of 2015
A woman visits a grave at a cemetery in Shanghai.
Photographer: Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images
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Escalating home prices in China may be making it an ever more expensive place to live but pity the sick and elderly: It’s also becoming an increasingly less affordable place to die.
Grave prices have outpaced home prices in every one of the past three years, according to Fu Shou Yuan International Group Ltd., China’s largest publicly traded operator of cemeteries and funeral facilities. The cost of an average plot, roughly the size of half a yoga mat, has surged 41 percent since the first half of 2015 to 100,483 yuan ($14,800). A gauge of home prices in 70 Chinese cities advanced 23 percent over that period.