Higher And Better Use: Burying Dead People Or Residential Development?

[Bryan Hancock]

We have located an owner in town that has many lots we'd like to purchase in a gentrifying area of town. The owner is in the funeral business and I am wondering if an offer from someone looking to develop housing on the properties would be more attractive than what they could make burying people.

The zoning of what they own appears to be mixed from what I can tell and the lots probably would only support small structures; like SFRs or maybe condos or duplexes.

Does anyone have any experience with the for-profit side of burying people and how to assess how much profit is in one piece of land for these folks? I am assuming they have all of the expertise and items needed to convert this to burial ground if they needed to.