Buying A Funeral Home Business !!TOP!!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kristan I. McNames, CFSP, graduated with a Bachelor Degree from the Mortuary Science and Funeral Service Program at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. After working for two corporate funeral providers, most recently as the General Manager; she decided to open her own funeral home in June of 2009, with her husband Bob McNames. Grace Funeral & Cremation Services is located in Rockford, Illinois, and has served over 240 families since opening.
buying a funeral home business
We are 9 months into our first year of taking over a small rural funeral home in upstate NY, your are absolutely spot on, especially with the software, thank goodness we have had a few successful months and have been able to afford adding a software program to our tool chest. Thanks for the insight into your first year.
I am currently in the process of taking over a funeral service in Detroit Michigan. I am not familiar with how to run and operate one, but I know how to utilize my resources. I would love to start a networking system with any and all who would be interested in sharing their negatives and positives about the business.
Hello. I am seriously interested in looking into starting this business. I have the perfect location and there is a need. My dad passed away @9 years ago and when it came time to select a funeral parlor near our home there were, surprisingly, very little options. In all this time, absolutely nothing has changed. I live in an community where there are many large family homes and retirement communities. I really think this would be a successful business.
I worked part-time for a large funeral home here in Milwaukee. I really enjoyed the feeling of helping others. I have thrown around the idea of opening my own place for a number of years. I would love to pick your brain at some point.
Hi Debra! Thanks so much for your comment. We would be happy to share more tips for managing a successful funeral home. Is there any topic in particular you would like to learn more about? Thanks for your kind feedback!
I Maisana and Mamogobo we want to start a funeral home and we have big plans for the business but the problem is we are still student at a secondary school and we are in Grade 11 so we have problem with finance but we need all the help we can gets so that we can start the business.Our contact is 0823458452 Maisana and Mamogobo 0768213452.
Hi my name is Esme, and I live in a very small town in the Upper Karoo in the Northern Cape. I would like to start my own funeral home I have the experience and qualifications in managing a bussiness, but I need funding to start a businees.Can anyone please assist me in fnding funding,sponsorships or donors
As A beginning mortuary science student with a set forth goal to become a owner of a funeral home. This info really helped me alot.my father started in the industry @ 16 & I had my share experience of working in funeral homes as well. My plan is to be the start of a legacy for our own family business. Again this info to me was Awesome!.. thanks.
I am currently a student seriously considering the idea of becoming a funeral director with the intention of opening my own funeral home after gaining necessary experience. I am looking for guidance on what tools I should equip myself with in order to be successful in this industry. What did you do to open your own successful funeral home? Is there advice you can give me on how I could open a successful business? Will it be sustainable and profitable? My hope is to open a mostly family run business in a suburban/rural setting. I am eager to hear your thoughts and any tips you could provide an aspiring student. Thank you, Olivia.
I started a funeral home one year ago and business is slow, in my country as about seventy four (74) other businesses. I have four (4) sales people place at different morgue, but deceased familial still going to more established home. Our funds are low to do much advertisment
The funeral home industry is in many ways a prime target for private equity, which looks for markets that are highly fragmented and could benefit from consolidation. By cobbling together chains of funeral homes, these firms can leverage economies of scale in purchasing, improve marketing strategies, and share administrative functions.
Although funeral price data is not readily available to the public, surveys by the local affiliates of the alliance have found that when publicly traded or private equity-backed chains acquire individual funeral homes, price hikes tend to follow.
In the Arizona city of Mesa, the sale of Lakeshore Mortuary to the publicly traded funeral home chain Service Corporation International led to price increases for a cremation from $1,565 in 2018 to $1,770 in 2021, for a burial from $2,795 to $3,680, and for an economical funeral from $4,385 to $5,090.
Foundation Partners Group officials said the price increases partly reflect the higher price of supplies, such as caskets, as well as increasing labor costs. But most of the increases, they said, represent a move to a more transparent pricing system that includes administrative and transportation fees that other funeral homes add on later.
A big surge of consolidation happened in the U.S. funeral home industry in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and again around 2010, said Chris Cruger, a Phoenix-based consultant to the industry. And acquisitions have reached a feverish pace in the past two to three years. Many investors are banking on a significant uptick in demand for death care services in the coming years as 73 million baby boomers, the oldest of whom will be in their late 70s, continue to age.
Meanwhile, many funeral home owner-operators are reaching retirement age and have no one in the family willing to take over. A 2021 survey by the National Funeral Directors Association found that 27% of owners planned to sell their business or retire within five years.
The value in funeral homes lies in more than their brick-and-mortar assets. Funeral home directors are often integral parts of their communities and have established significant goodwill with their neighbors. So when corporate chains acquire these homes, they rarely change the name and often keep the former owners around to smooth the transition.
Instead, Olthof sold to Greg Rollings, a former funeral director who had amassed a privately owned, 90-site chain of funeral homes throughout the Northeast. Rollings had offered less money than the big chains had, but he knew what it was like to be awoken at 2:30 a.m. and put on a suit to go help a grieving family. He knew what it was like to bury a child.
Foundation Partners Group is a prime example. Backed by the private equity firm Access Holdings, the funeral home chain shifted five years ago to acquiring funeral homes with high cremation rates. Cremation rates nationally have been steadily climbing over the past two decades, with nearly 58% of families now choosing cremation over casket burials. Foundation Partners expects that rate to hit 70% by 2030. 041b061a72