Funeral Homes

Uh... negatively. You really had to ask that? What answers did you expect? Aside from the obvious morbidity of it, you get grieving people outside your door 24/7/365, car lined up and double parked, funeral corteges forming, hearsts pulling up at all hours. Are you seriously asking this?

It will increase the value if your apartment is marketed in estate condition.

Thanks kylewest. Just wanted to confirm I was not thinking weird...you know? I am not a newyorker and some things are definetively different here in Manhattan...I thought eventually that could be different than everuwhere else...I see it is not!! thanks for answering.

Probably bad feng shui too, but that is just a guess.

Not so sure.. You know your neighbors will be quiet.

lintintin -- great answer!

It's widely stated that houses opposite cemetaries suffer from reduced values -- people don't want to be reminded of death -- but I think I'd be willing to pay a little more for a big open green view that rarely has any activity. I hate the look of big lawns and golf courses, but broken up with stone it be a softer kind of green.

I definitely concur with kylewest -- nonstop cars and crowds.

But alanhart, think of the positive. Your last trip will be a short one and you will be in familiar surroundings.

No, I'm going up in smoke.

I am as well.

Also, a great movie....

I'd much rather live next door to a funeral home than a night club!

I don't like living near people. It just reminds me they're all going to die. Babies are the worst; too depressing.

The undertakers I walk by all the time, Perez's(?) on 72nd and Riverside on Amsterdam, don't seem to have all that much traffic. One or two funerals per day, if that.

What about buying a funeral home and renovating it as a family house? Would you guys do it?

I don't know. You might get visitors from beyond...

Fish and visitors smell bad in three days.

Lived next door to a funeral home for approximately six months; very few funerals, and parking was super easy because the cops wouldn't catch you if you parked in the reserved funeral parlor spot for less than 30 minutes. Then it became fancy-pants apartments; they do not appear to have any difficulty renting them.

My biggest concern was that when zombies attacked, I'd be a sitting duck. ;)

I recently went to an open house of a building that was used as a funeral home for a long time until the business owners' retired years ago. I would have never known if the owner's rep didn't tell me. The parlor floor living room was quite spacious for obvious reasons.

I am actually interested in a funeral home I visited. It has been inactive for a couple of decades, but it's next door to yet another funeral home that is for sale as well, so one could hope it will be sold soon. Both houses are mix use (Res and com -the C of O states that the commercial use is for funeral services-I wonder if one has to change the C of O to other commercial status....question for 30yrs if he reads this.) The place is fantastic, and has a lot of potential. I am looking at this specific house as an investment+piede a terre. Any advise? Yes, I know, it sounds eccentric...

Is it on 14th Street? A number of funeral homes on West 14th have been converted back to residential (and for really high $, 241 West 4th came on the market in 2005 for $14,000,000 before eventually being sold to Ben Shaoul for $8.25 million and rented to the Norwoood folks)). If you're making a change from commercial to residential, obviously you have to change the CofO, but changing CofO's isn't all that big a deal if it's as of right type of stuff. Although you may have problems getting a full retail use group if there's been a zoning change. but that would bring up another issue as well: you say it's been out of use for a couple of decades? If you have a non-conforming use (i.e. the zoning isn't for commercial/retail, but the space in grandfathered in because it was commercial/retail before the zoning change), after 2 full years of continuous non-use, you lose your grandfathered status.

I remember many ears ago going to view a townhouse on King st (maybe Charlton?) and all the guy kept talking about was how Leontyne Price owned the house right next door. When we left, the guy I went to the house with snsrkily said "Leontyne Price's house is worth more". I can't finish the rest of the story.

30yrs, the house is in Harlem. The c of o states the garden floor as "embalming room" and the parlor as "resting room." The place acts as storage of the funeral home next door (you can choose a coffin in the garden floor) but has been out of business for the last 20 years, and the c of o is from the '40s. The house is unbelievable, with very well maintained details, though it needs some gutting and pipes are broken. I wonder how long will it take to get rid of the social funeral karma. The fact that there is another funeral house next door doesn't help. I really think this is a good investment, though. For the same price than a regular brownstone fixer upper I get one extra floor (5), 2 of them commercial spaces in prime Harlem. I am going to wait, though, since I know the market there is going to be hit harder in the next year.

You've got a bunch of different aspects you are playing with here: is the building located on a commercial block? Usually that in and of itself are a HUGE negative to the value of a single family.

mimi, I'm sure you'll do your due diligence before you buy because as 30yrs says, there are a lot of factors involved. We have a family property in Boston, a 4 unit house which my grandparents bought in 1921; one brother wants to get creative & make more/smaller units so I called downtown to check the zoning & was told that if, God forbid, the place burned down, we could only rebuild a 2 unit house. Luckily that's a 'nyet' to his cockamamee scheme of creating a slum. Anyway, caveat emptor.