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Think Chinese Home Prices Are High? Try Buying a Grave

Escalating home prices in China may be making it an ever more expensive place to live but pity the sick and elderly

Think Chinese Home Prices Are High? Try Buying a Grave
A cross sits on a tombstone in Venezuela. (Photographer: Adriana Loureiro Fernandez/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- 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.

Fu Shou Yuan filings show that’s about 112,545 yuan per square meter in 2017 -- double the 56,196 yuan per square meter it costs to buy an apartment in the southern metropolis of Shenzhen, China’s most-expensive city.

“Supply is very limited,” said Hao Hong, a chief strategist at Bocom International Holdings Co. “We’ve heard about some people who bought flats in Shanghai to store cremains instead of expensive graves."

Think Chinese Home Prices Are High? Try Buying a Grave

Shanghai-based Fu Shou Yuan, whose name translates to ‘good fortune longevity garden,’ sold 6,214 graves across China in the first six months of 2018 with the average unit price rising 7 percent year-on-year.

Land that’s used for graves has so far escaped the long arm of China’s regulators, said Yan Yuejin, a property analyst at China Real Estate Information Corp. in Shanghai. “That’s partly fueled the soaring prices.”

Think Chinese Home Prices Are High? Try Buying a Grave

Beijing has imposed various property curbs over the years in an attempt to cool the housing market but needs to ensure there isn’t a sudden decline in home prices that could harm the broader economy. By some estimates, real estate accounts (directly and indirectly) for as much as 30 percent of gross domestic product.

China’s so-called crude death rate -- which refers to the number of deaths occurring throughout a year, per 1,000 population -- was 7 in 2016, down from 25 in 1960, World Bank data show.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Fox Hu in Hong Kong at fhu7@bloomberg.net;Emma Dong in Shanghai at edong10@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Katrina Nicholas at knicholas2@bloomberg.net;Divya Balji at dbalji1@bloomberg.net

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.

With assistance from Editorial Board