Burial plot advertised for sale in Sydney graveyard for $100,000

It’s no surprise the Sydney housing market is out of control but an ad on Facebook Marketplace has shocked even seasoned property buyers.

That Sydney’s housing market is wildly expensive is nothing new.

But in a sign that nothing is scared in the Harbour City when it comes to property, burial plots are now being sold for $100,000.

Eyebrows were raised when an advert appeared on Facebook Marketplace for a double burial plot at Waverley Cemetery, close to Bondi in the city’s east, that broke the six figure mark.

The ad states that the plot is “used – like new” and is available “in perpetuity”. It has been used once, it states, in 1911.

To sweeten the deal, the burial site’s owner states it has “ocean views” and is in a “quiet neighbourhood,” which is one way to describe a graveyard.

The burial plot advertised for sale in Sydney graveyard for $100,000. Picture: Channel 9/Facebook.

Another burial plot in the same cemetery is on sale for $55,000, albeit a discount from its original price tag of $70,000.

Talking to A Current Affair, Ben Kelly from the Australasian Cemeteries and Crematoria Association, said cost of living pressures – or perhaps cost of dying pressures – were a factor even in the graveyard industry.

The cost of land and maintaining cemeteries was all on the up.

“Waverley Cemetery is a beautiful, historic cemetery with extremely limited capacity left,” Mr Kelly said.

“As the population grows these cemeteries are filling up and they are creating new ones but they are further and further away.

“So when the spots do come available they are obviously of a premium.”

Sydney’s Waverley Cemetary has magnificent views.

And there’s no doubt Waverley Cemetery is not your normal graveyard. Heritage listed, it opened in 1877 in the beachside suburb of Bronte.

It’s full of impressive Victorian and Edwardian monuments and memorials and has views to the Pacific to, well, die for.

Its surrounding streets are filled with some of Australia’s most expensive real estate with the Bondi to Coogee boardwalk, thronged with tourists, passing in front of it.

“It sounds disgraceful to be honest,” one passer-by told A Current Affair, when told of the price of a plot at the graveyard.

“I think that’s ridiculous”.

Competition to get into Waverley Cemetery is so fierce that new plots with perpetual rights are no longer available.

Instead only renewable internment rights can be purchased. This allows for the burial of human rights for a minimum initial term of 25 years which then has to be renewed.

And there’s a wait list for that.

But the existing perpetual plots are in private hands so could fetch a high price.

Space in Waverley Cemetery is at a premium. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

Cemetary crisis

A 2020 report by the NSW Government found some of Sydney’s largest and most well-known public cemeteries were in there “final years” of being able to accommodate new burials and will likely be full by 2032.

Right now it can cost between $12,000 and $45,000 for grave internment rights in NSW cemeteries, even in those without Waverley’s stunning position.

New cemeteries can cost between $200-$300 million to build.

“Left unaddressed, the challenges identified will escalate quickly,” stated the report.

In the future, options to free up space could include natural burials. These are often in bush or woodlands, there are no heavy headstones, the coffin is biodegradable and the body is not embalmed.

Essentially, after a period, no trace of the buried remains.

Dr Hannah Gould, a University of Melbourne cultural anthropologist who studies death, said it was wrong to ask people to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a burial plot.

“Them being sold on Facebook Marketplace is really a new development in many ways and one that I haven’t seen before”.

But she warned that anyone that was looking to snap up a burial plot on social media should do their research.

“Different states and territories have different laws when it comes to the transfer of rights of interment so in many cases people are restricted from making a profit.

“It’s really important that people really look into that before they offer them up on Facebook Marketplace.”

Originally published as Burial plot advertised for sale in Sydney graveyard for $100,000