Those of us who are thinking of alternate places to invest, have you ever considered a pet cemetery?

Have you ever checked around where you are to see if there are any?

Lots of people dearly love their pets yet when these pets pass away what do they do with their pets bodies? Many have them cremated BUT some people don't want to do that and prefer to bury them. As a landlord, we are sometimes faced with the fact that they may bury their pet in the rental's back yard. Good or bad, it happens.

As an alternative, I suggest to the tenant they consider a pet cemetery but where are these cemeteries? I've found them few and far between. In addition, there are usually a small fee to bury them, a fee for a marker and ongoing fees to have them there.

Home owners, not tenants, also sometimes want to bury their pets.

Bottom line though, as an investor, I look at all those fees, especially the ongoing fees and I think of how many pets might be interred there. It could give comfort to grieving owners and still generate substantial income. People might thank you for providing such a place.

Some quick calculations:

1 acre is 43560 SQ feet. Take away 50 percent for roads, etc leaves 21780 SQ ft. If a plot for their pet is 3x3 or 9 SQ feet, 21780 divided by 9 is 2420 plots. If each one paid only $10 a month for their pets resting place that's 2420x10 = $24200 per month. At only $10 per month.

Richard,

What happens when they stop paying? How do you evict the pet? Dig it up and return it?

(I'm not saying this is a bad idea -- I'm genuinely curious!)

I have three tenant cats that we know of on property. I'd do a pet cemetery but it wouldn't be ongoing fees, just a dig & drop fee. If they want more care, headstones and such then they could pay a per-visit fee. Using Venmo and such collecting is easy.

"and likely no tenant problems"

Not a Stephen King fan, I presume? *Wink

John, I had the same question, and I don't know the answer. My guess is if plot rent isn't paid, you just reuse it whenever you run out of room. The "beauty" of a deal like this is you're not really losing any rent from unpaid plots as long as you have empty plots. There is no unmet demand, and with 2420 plot, I imagine it would take a looooong time to get them all... *ahem... "occupied."

I'm guessing this would have to be commercial land or something out in the country that no one really cares what you do with. At $15,000 / acre for commercial dirt, this deal would pay itself off in one month's time. Maybe 2 months if you consider infrastructure like roads, plot markers, etc. You could also open up an online store that sells monuments, fake flower, chew toys, mice on a string, etc.

That said, I don't know if a monthly model would work. Maybe a flat rate of $100, plus a $10 annual maintenance fee to hire someone for lawncare/upkeep? You'd still make $242,000 using Richard's figures... on a $15,000 - $30,000 investment.

Wow! I just looked up local pet cemeteries. This is a thriving business. You can get "burial packages" with monuments, videos, samples of hair preserved in everything from a bottle to a custom amber locket, a burial certificate, a casket (one cost $3000!), body pick up service.... even someone who will come out an bury your pet on YOUR property.

Basically, you can spend as much as you want ensuring Fido ends up in the ground, or on your mantle, or around your neck or ... (sky is the limit).

I suppose if I ever get bored with IT as a day job....

Seven years ago I buried my cat in my backyard with a shovel. I'm glad people can have pets in their lives, but this is, I think, certifiably insane when people claim they can't afford a dozen eggs.

That said, someone probably feels the same about me driving a Porsche on a race track. Oh well...

I read one time that in Japan when it's time to bury a person they bury them standing up and the family gets the grave site for 5 years. After 5 years they dig them up and cremate the remains and the space gore's to another family.

When I moved to Texas in the mid 80's there was a local vet on the edge of our metro area that had some land beside his practice. At the time (1985) he would charge a flat rate of $300 to allow you to bury your pet out there. That got you the hole dug and filled, a white cloth wrap for your pet, and a plastic marker that you wrote on with a sharpie. Having grown up on a very rural Missouri farm I thought that was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever seen. Now I'm thinking that Vet was a genius for finding an alternate way to supplement the income from his practice and put some vacant land to good use.

Interesting concept! And so far, no problems with changing the use of that land in the future.

Still not a fan of using land for burials of anything.

Money can be made, but it's not something I would be interested in.

There are two pet cemeteries around these parts, and a whole lot of people versions. I mean a WHOLE lot of them.

Dogs decompose way faster than humans. I can't remember if it's 3x or 5x or 20x. We dug some up while we were doing an animal cruelty investigation. It turned out if the dogs had been in the ground more than 24/36/48/whateveritwas hours, cause of death could no longer be determined.

Not such easy money because if you want clients, the grounds would have to look nice. That means ongoing gardening. No one who is willing to pay big bucks to bury their dog is going to pay to have it buried in a field full of tumbleweeds.

Zero,

Cemetaries provide a function of giving people someplace to leave their grief and move on. Japan has a 99% cremation rate for people, yet still has cenetaries and other spaces dedicated to placing their loved ones, and defined rituals for this. India also has cemetaries which hold ashes, as well as rituals and ceremonies for scattering the remains. They have had the situation solved for thousands of years.

When we adopt another culture's practices solely for economic reasons, we often only get it half right and leave the consumer or some other entity the task of doing the remainder of the cleanup. This results in finding some unknown person's cremains in closets when cleaning out a house, or some great grand cousin who never knew the person inheriting the dilemma of how to dispose of them. It also results in Cousin Ellie being ticked off at Cousin Bob because they perceived they handled Grandpa Smith in a wrong way.

Your youngest has a point. Be buried, give the loved ones and future family historians a place to visit, and let everyone move emotionally on. Also, it will save a future landlord of some cleanout task.

An article that came across my feed a bit ago---

55-year-old spent $15,000 on his side hustle, quit his 60-hour workweek job—now he brings in up to $23,000 a month

Rodney Melton used to work 12-hour days at a pet care manufacturer for $31 per hour.

It was a good living, says Melton, 55, but it doesn't measure up his earnings today making and selling pet memorials.

The Alma, Arkansas, resident started his side hustle in for two reasons. His friend's dog Molly died, and he happened to own a $15,000 engraver for his stone-carving hobby. Molly's concrete headstone turned out well, and Melton decided to open an Etsy shop in March 2021.

A few initial orders turned into a handful of positive reviews, which turned into more orders. Melton added granite carvings to his repertoire, and bought new equipment to cut down his production time. In May 2022, he sold nearly $20,000 worth of engraved memorials. By month's end, he still had 230 orders still left to fill.

So, he quit his job and enlisted his wife to help him make pet headstones full-time. Last year, he hired his daughter and daughter-in-law, too. The store brought in $207,000 in 2022 revenue, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. About 65% of that was profit, Melton estimates.

Each member of the four-person team works roughly five hours per day, leading to a total average of 50 pet memorials per week, Melton says. And though they depend on his technical expertise, local granite sources and willingness to invest in the business, Melton swears there's nothing special about his store's success.

"Anybody can do this," he says.

A machinery-based side hustle

Melton's stone-engraving hobby relied on a computer-controlled carving tool known as a CNC router. He'd use it to carve family names or street addresses into rocks for his neighbors' yards. There's room for such lawn accessories in Alma, a town of 6,000 people that sits at the edge of the Ozark Mountains.

At first, he only could only fulfill 16 Etsy orders per month. The cement fillings sat in molds for two days before Melton could engrave and glaze them, a roughly five-hour process. His wife finished each memorial, filling the letters with epoxy glue.

The extra cash was great, he says, but he wanted to shorten his lead time. After researching online, he discovered that his process was somewhat obsolete. Three months after opening his store, he spent $7,000 from his savings on sandblasting equipment, because an expert online told him he'd "be crazy" not to, he says.

The equipment cut his production time down to 45 minutes. In the second half of the year, he brought in between $5,400 and $8,300 per month.

Local connections, major payoffs

In January 2022, Melton decided to add granite headstones — a more durable, expensive and premium product — to his Etsy shop. The problem: Granite wasn't easy to find.

A local monument company had a nine-month-long waiting list, but told Melton they needed someone with a laser engraver to etch photographs onto granite headstones in cemeteries. Two doors down, a countertop manufacturer offered to sell him black, champagne and speckled granite scraps.

Melton bought the scraps and, sensing opportunity, invested $38,000 — from both his savings and the previous year's proceeds — in a laser engraver, further cutting down his production time.

Combined with a higher-quality product, Melton's sales soared. He brought in $23,200 that June, the month after he left his full-time job.

Around that time, he started buying discarded countertops on Facebook Marketplace, he says. The slabs were cheaper, but required more equipment: Melton bought a $3,000 granite saw to shape the stone and a $3,500 machine to chisel the edges, giving the memorials a natural look.

In total, Melton has spent about $66,500 on stone tools, he says. His store has brought in nearly $383,000 in revenue in two and a half years.

Maintaining the family business

Working with his wife, daughter and daughter-in-law helps Melton be more efficient and creative, he says. They communicate well with each other, and when a customer orders, it now only takes about nine days for them to design, make and ship their memorials, Melton says.

It also raises the stakes of his business. If the shop doesn't bring in money, his entire family is in trouble. And earnings can fluctuate dramatically, Melton says. Sometimes, his store gets buried in Etsy's search results for reasons he can't entirely explain. (An Etsy spokesperson declined to comment.)

It usually rebounds within a month or two, says Melton. But during one such slowdown, his daughter started looking for part-time jobs, in case business never picked back up.

The fluctuations worried Melton too, until he realized that the only thing he could control amid those uncertain times was the consistency of his work, he says.

Sir Walter, I understand the reasons behind cemeteries, I just do not agree with them. Maybe I am just too cold hearted.

I have a lot of family that have been buried. Some I was very close with. I have never wanted to go back and visit the graves. Same with the animals I buried throughout my life. We cremated the last dog we had and kept the ashes. That was because the wife wanted it that way. She has done nothing with the ashes. Not even put them on a shelf for display.

I have nothing against burial. I just do not agree that we need to put those in a casket and seal them in a cement box for all eternity.

Totally. That's why we put up with the hassle--- because the houses make money while we sleep, vs only making money when someone wants to buy-a-thing, and then we have to do-the-thing.