Chinese buy flats for cremated ashes due to high cemetery costs, leading to law against practice

A severe shortage of burial land in China's major cities, compounded by an aging population, has created a crisis where traditional cemetery plots have become prohibitively expensive. The situation reached a peak in Shanghai, where in March 2023, plots at the Songhe Cemetery were reported to cost approximately 760,000 yuan (US$110,000) per square meter. This staggering price was over 13 times the city's average residential housing cost of about 55,000 yuan per square meter at the time. With Shanghai's roughly 54 commercial cemeteries nearing capacity, families seeking to fulfill cultural obligations of 'filial piety' through proper burial were priced out of the conventional market.

This economic pressure led to the emergence of a controversial workaround: purchasing small, often lower-cost residential apartments to serve as permanent repositories for urns containing ashes. This practice, dubbed the 'ghost apartment' trend, offered significant financial flexibility compared to six-figure grave plots. However, it ignited a fierce public debate, with critics raising concerns about the 'psychological discomfort' for living neighbors and the potential devaluation of surrounding property. The widespread discussion and viral online coverage of the phenomenon ultimately prompted Chinese authorities to pass a new law explicitly banning the use of residential properties for storing human ashes, forcing families back to the drawing board to find affordable and socially acceptable memorial solutions.