Where cemeteries might influence how much buyers save or spend

An abundance of nearby graveyards may help scare up neighborhood home values or bury them – an indication that there are usually other variables at play in determining local home values than just the number of and/or proximity to the nearest cemeteries, according to a Zillow analysis.

Whether local homeowners are spooked or soothed by the prospect of hundreds of nearby neighbors eternally resting in peace is a matter of personal tolerance – some may enjoy the quiet, others may shiver when things go bump in the night. Similarly, the value of their home relative to other homes in their area may prove heavenly or hellish if there’s a boneyard nearby.

For example, living residents of the Seward Hall neighborhood in the Nashville metro area – home to 15 cemeteries – will find themselves at an expensive disadvantage if (when?) their dead neighbors decide to reanimate: Their homes are generally worth $320,300 more than the typical Nashville-area home. The Glendale neighborhood in the New York City metro has a total of nine graveyards, and the typical home there is worth $204,200 more than the typical home in the metro. Like Glendale, Boston’s West Roxbury neighborhood also has nine graveyards, and median home values there are $123,600 more than a typical Boston-area home.

But there are also areas where would-be home buyers should expect to save when sharing their neighborhood with the dead. In the San Francisco metro area, cemeteries are more evenly distributed – no neighborhood has more than one. The Mission-Garin neighborhood in the city of Hayward, Calif., just outside of San Francisco features median home values that are $339,200 less than in the metro as a whole. Other cemetery savings in the San Francisco area can be found in Hayward’s Mission-Foothill neighborhood, with a median home value $333,500 less than the metro-wide median; and in Oakland’s Fairfax community, where the median home value is $257,100 less than the Bay Area median.

In these neighborhoods, it’s unlikely that the graveyards themselves are actively driving down the local cost of housing. Instead, it’s more likely that their distance from expensive Bay Area and Silicon Valley job centers helps keep their costs down relative to pricier communities. Case in point: The typical home in the Central Menlo Park neighborhood (which has one graveyard), straddling the San Francisco and San Jose metro areas and within more convenient commuting distance to both, is worth almost $3 million more than the typical home in the San Francisco metro area.

Here are the neighborhoods with the most graveyards in 10 major metros areas where buyers can expect to find screaming deals:

1. Los Angeles, CA – Boyle Heights has three graveyards, and the typical home there is $200,700 cheaper than one in the Los Angeles metro as a whole.
2. Houston, TX – Acres Home has three graveyards and the typical home there is $82,800 cheaper than one in the Houston metro.
3. Philadelphia, PA – Wissinoming ($119,500 cheaper) and West Oak Lane ($84,000 cheaper) both have three graveyards each and cost less than their metro area.
4. San Francisco, CA – The San Francisco area has six neighborhoods with one graveyard each (no neighborhood has more) where buyers can pay as much as $339,200 less than the typical home value for the metro.
5. Phoenix, AZ – The Estrella neighborhood has three graveyards and the typical home there is $55,200 cheaper than the metro area’s typical home.
6. Riverside, CA – Three neighborhoods in this metro (Seccombe Lane, Sunny Sands, and Kendall) all have one graveyard each and offer bargain deals on a home compared to the typical price for the metro (homes in these areas are valued $147,000, $42,300 and $30,100 less than the metro median, respectively).
7. Detroit, MI – Springwells has two graveyards and the typical home there is $125,900 cheaper than the Detroit metro area.
8. Seattle, WA – South Tacoma has three graveyards, and home values there are $226,500 less than the typical Seattle-area home (probably in large part due to its distance from the city of Seattle).
9. Minneapolis, MN – The North End neighborhood has four graveyards and buyers there can expect the median home to be worth $94,600 less than the typical typical home in the greater Minneapolis metro area.
10. San Diego, CA – Mountain View has two graveyards, and home values are $195,500 less than the metro as a whole

Here are the cemetery-rich neighborhoods in the top 10 major metros where home buyers are likely to find that typical homes are worth a scary-high amount relative to the metro as a whole:

1. New York, NY – Glendale has nine graveyards and a typical home there is worth $204,200 more than the metro as a whole.
2. Chicago, IL – Sauganash has four graveyards. The typical home there his $181,400 more than the typical Chicago metro home price.
3. Dallas, TX – Preston Hollow has eight graveyards and homes there are worth $162,000 more than the typical home in the Dallas metro area.
4. Houston, TX – Washington Avenue Coalition Memorial Park ($186,200 more valuable than the typical Houston metro area home) and Neartown Montrose ($295,800 more valuable) boast three graveyards each.
5. Washington, DC – The Edgewood neighborhood has three graveyards and the typical home there is valued $149,400 more than the typical DC area home.
6. Miami, FL – Alameda – West Flagler has two graveyards, and a home there is typically worth $34,600 more than the metro as a whole.
7. Atlanta, GA – No neighborhood in the Atlanta area has more than one graveyard. Four neighborhoods in the area have one graveyard where a home is worth substantially more than the typical Atlanta-area home: East Lake ($177,700 more), Hills Park ($218,500 more), River Chase ($565,800 more) and Downtown ($125,700 more).
8. Boston, MA – West Roxbury has nine graveyards and the typical home there has a value $123,600 more than the typical Boston-area home.
9. San Francisco, CA – The San Francisco area has nine neighborhoods with one graveyard apiece in which the typical home is worth between $73,300 and $2,979,700 more than the metro-wide median. These neighborhoods are: Irvington ($73,300 more), Gerstle Park ($132,700 more), Glenmoor ($159,700 more), Sun Valley ($182,100 more), Palm ($274,200 more), Dominican/Black Canyon ($320,000 more), Mission San Jose ($668,600 more), Cameron Hills ($801,500 more) Central Menlo Park ($2,979,700 more).
10. Riverside, CA – In Oakmont ($168,700 more), La Sierra Hills ($50, 800 more), and Victoria ($62,100) buyers can expect to find homes that are worth more than the typical home in the area. Each of these three neighborhoods has one graveyard.