Please find below and article about a luxury cemetery that I have quoted from Seattle Times.
Luxury cemetery in Indonesia comes with helicopter landing pad
San Diego Hills is the latest manifestation of how entrepreneurs can profit from the growing spending power of the world's fourth-biggest consumer market by population.
Bloomberg News
"This is a happy place," says Muhsin, who has bought several grave sites for family members. (Like many Indonesians, Muhsin only has one name.)
San Diego Hills is the latest manifestation of how entrepreneurs can profit from the growing spending power of the world's fourth-biggest consumer market by population. At least 35 million of Indonesia's 240 million citizens — equivalent to the population of Canada — are middle class and above, according to calculations by economist Cyrillus Harinowo, an independent commissioner of PT Bank Central Asia, the country's biggest financial-services company by market value.
Along with a boom in real estate, stock prices and sales of designer goods, Indonesia is experiencing a bull market in luxury burial plots. San Diego Hills, 29 miles outside the capital, was dreamed up by billionaire property developer Mochtar Riady, who with his son, James, controls a media, financial services and real-estate empire that includes property company PT Lippo Karawaci.
The Riadys bet there would be enough Indonesians rich enough to patronize a cemetery that resembled a country club.
To sell the cemetery plots, they hired Suziany Japardy, a career banker, who had been a regional manager at PT Bank Lippo, once owned by the Riadys.
"I was so worried about marketing this product," Japardy says.
She needn't have been. So far, 14,000 plots have been sold, and there's room for a total of 1 million bodies. Mochtar Riady has even re interred his parents there.
Three years ago, the cheapest single-grave plots sold for 3.5 million rupiah ($400). Today, the entry price has almost tripled to 9.5 million rupiah, with the most expensive memorials costing 8 billion rupiah. By comparison, residential real-estate prices have been rising at 10 percent a year, says Anton Sitorus, head of research at the Indonesian unit of Jones Lang LaSalle. Grave-sale revenue last year soared to 62 billion rupiah — a 21 percent increase over 2008, according to the Lippo Karawaci annual report. A secondary market has also sprung up, with San Diego Hills charging a 10 percent commission on each transaction.
Three years after opening, Lippo Karawaci still has the luxury cemetery market to itself.
"It's a very interesting idea and totally new in Indonesia," says Natalia Sutanto, a property analyst at Bahana Securities in Jakarta, who has a "buy" recommendation on Lippo Karawaci stock. "I think it will eventually give them a big profit, but I'm not sure I would want to get married there."
San Diego Hills is the latest manifestation of how entrepreneurs can profit from the growing spending power of the world's fourth-biggest consumer market by population. At least 35 million of Indonesia's 240 million citizens — equivalent to the population of Canada — are middle class and above, according to calculations by economist Cyrillus Harinowo, an independent commissioner of PT Bank Central Asia, the country's biggest financial-services company by market value.
Along with a boom in real estate, stock prices and sales of designer goods, Indonesia is experiencing a bull market in luxury burial plots. San Diego Hills, 29 miles outside the capital, was dreamed up by billionaire property developer Mochtar Riady, who with his son, James, controls a media, financial services and real-estate empire that includes property company PT Lippo Karawaci.
The Riadys bet there would be enough Indonesians rich enough to patronize a cemetery that resembled a country club.
To sell the cemetery plots, they hired Suziany Japardy, a career banker, who had been a regional manager at PT Bank Lippo, once owned by the Riadys.
"I was so worried about marketing this product," Japardy says.
She needn't have been. So far, 14,000 plots have been sold, and there's room for a total of 1 million bodies. Mochtar Riady has even re interred his parents there.
Three years ago, the cheapest single-grave plots sold for 3.5 million rupiah ($400). Today, the entry price has almost tripled to 9.5 million rupiah, with the most expensive memorials costing 8 billion rupiah. By comparison, residential real-estate prices have been rising at 10 percent a year, says Anton Sitorus, head of research at the Indonesian unit of Jones Lang LaSalle. Grave-sale revenue last year soared to 62 billion rupiah — a 21 percent increase over 2008, according to the Lippo Karawaci annual report. A secondary market has also sprung up, with San Diego Hills charging a 10 percent commission on each transaction.
Three years after opening, Lippo Karawaci still has the luxury cemetery market to itself.
"It's a very interesting idea and totally new in Indonesia," says Natalia Sutanto, a property analyst at Bahana Securities in Jakarta, who has a "buy" recommendation on Lippo Karawaci stock. "I think it will eventually give them a big profit, but I'm not sure I would want to get married there."
