Do You Prefer Your Neighbors Dead or Alive?
Why would a real estate developer in South Florida build luxury townhomes overlooking a cemetery? As if the real estate market was not tough enough to sell your home, now add the spook of folks six feet under to the long list of objections to help buyer's overcome. In a twisted way, overlooking a cemetery could be considered beautiful green space, full of colorful flowers honoring the resting place of loved ones. When we think of real estate near a cemetery, Carol Ann being kidnapped by the dead in Steven Spielberg's Poltergeist haunted thriller, immediately comes to mind. You may remember the voice of Carol Ann saying "don't go into the light" coming from the television set when her parents realized she had been taken by the dead. In the movie Poltergeist, a real estate developer built a master planned community above a cemetery without disclosure to the buyers and well, you know the rest of the story if you saw the movie.
I flashed back to a moment in elementary school, riding my bike home after school. I would ride through the cemetery in my neighborhood, thankful that the sprinklers were on, cooling me off on the sometimes hot Florida afternoons. I would stop to read the headstones wondering who the people were and what memories they left behind. To me, riding my bike through a cemetery was a place of curiosity and wonder.
Over the years, we've seen real estate developers challenged by existing cemeteries on their parcels of land where they planned to build master planned communities. Some real estate developers mask the cemetery with hedges to conceal them and not show them on the master community site plan, while other real estate developers create a park with flowers, benches and walking paths, beautiful places to reflect. As buyers carefully select where to build there dream home, buyers may end up tip toeing through a cemetery in their community. So would you live next to a cemetery or not?
Most of us have had neighbors from hell, so neighbors resting in peace may sound pretty good. The choice is yours. Don't be afraid to ask the real estate developer or sales person for full disclosure. It is okay to ask if there are residents in the community permanently parked six feet under on 'protected green space', if that bugs you. We invite you to share your ideas by leaving a comment, about how real estate developers should handle disclosure about a cemetery in their master planned community.
