“Recession-proof.” Funeral director Paul Bradley has heard his industry often so described. He, more than some owners in the funeral services trade in Westchester County, has found that less true in this recession.
“We are recession-proof in the fact that people still have to die,” Bradley said amid the dust and clutter of renovations at Waterbury and Kelly Funeral Home in Ossining, where he will take over ownership Oct. 1. from the funeral industry giant, Service Corporation International (SCI) in Houston.
“Like any large corporation, you can”™t manage a funeral home in Ossining from Houston, Texas,” he said of the sale. Since 1991, he has also owned Bradley Funeral Service in Pleasantville, an outsourcing company that has him handling 1,500 to 2,000 service calls a year from about 100 SCI funeral homes across the country.
“The flip side is that people are selecting less” in funeral price items, he said. “One day versus two days for a wake. No limousine service. Cremation instead of burial. Less on a casket. No obituary versus obituary,” which can cost about $500 to publish in Westchester. “For some reason, people tend not to cut back on flowers,” despite their expense and short-lived use, he said.
Some clients first compare plot and burial prices at cemeteries, where lot prices have risen as available land is increasingly scarce, he said. One cemetery might require concrete burial vaults, an added expense of about $1,600, while others in the area do not.
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Bradley said cemetery costs in the area can total approximately $4,500 for a plot purchase, grave opening and headstone. Some families are choosing cremation instead. “Instead of going to a cemetery with their expense, we”™re going to a crematory for $344,” he said.
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“Yet I do know families that are having cremation that spend a large amount of money on the casket” for a traditional funeral service, he added. “It”™s not totally socioeconomically driven, because you will still see where poor people go with the full-service funeral and burial”¦In some cultures, cremation is still taboo.”
“I”™ve seen a major-league jump in cremations in the last year since the recession hit, without a doubt,” Bradley said. “Whether it”™s just a coincidence or it”™s economically motivated, I can”™t answer.”
He and other Westchester funeral directors said the increase in cremations is one of the changing social and cultural trends that affected their business even before the recession. Nationally, cremation was the method of disposition for nearly 35 percent of deaths in 2007, compared with less than 24 percent 10 years earlier, according to the Cremation Association of America. The cremation rate is expected to climb to 39 percent in 2010. Bradley said some large, lucrative funeral homes in the Westchester area already have cremation rates ranging from 30 percent to 50 percent.
At Farenga Brothers Funeral Homes Inc., a fifth-generation metropolitan business that dates to 1896, owner Salvatore Farenga joined in the trade of his immigrant great-grandfather and great-grandmother, grandfather and father 38 years ago. His sons, Salvatore A. and Nicholas, have joined him in the business and now run day-to-day operations at the family”™s funeral homes on McLean Avenue in Yonkers and the Bronx
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Sixteen percent of deaths handled at their funeral homes now end in cremation, Farenga said recently in Yonkers. “It”™s gone from 6 percent to 16 percent in my career.” Yet cremation is not as popular a choice in Yonkers as in other parts of the country. “You will find that a lot of families here are traditional as far as mode of final disposition,” he said.
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“I anticipated a loss or a drop in the average adult funeral income because of the economy,” said Farenga, whose grandfather was 14 when he obtained his undertaker”™s license in Manhattan. “Even if people aren”™t that affected, people are aware and cautious. The economy is making a difference to a degree only because this is foremost in everybody”™s minds.”
Farenga has seen the economy”™s impact in some clients”™ selections of merchandise such as caskets and vaults. Floral arrangements “are not like they used to be. I don”™t remember the last time we used a flower car” in a funeral procession, he said.
“When the economy gets bad like now, all those things are going to be less,” said Farenga.
At Hawthorne Funeral Home, owner Ernest J. Carpentieri indicated his business has been recession-proof.
“I believe that most of the families that we”™re dealing with, their funds in most cases have already been set aside for burial,” he said. “I haven”™t seen any change in the way people have made funeral arrangements as a result of the economy.”
Carpentieri said some clients have eliminated “frills” such as paid obituaries, flowers and limousines, due more to family finances than to the overall state of the economy. “Back 30 years ago, I saw 2- to 3-day wakes. A lot of that has been cut down to one-day wakes in the Christian faith,” he said.
“We”™re burying a lot of the baby boomers and they have a different mindset when it comes to funerals than their fathers and grandfathers had,” said the Hawthorne funeral director. “We”™re still having funerals but maybe they”™re taking a few shortcuts” on services and price items.
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At Ballard-Durand Funeral and Cremation Services in White Plains, owner Matthew J. Fiorillo said he is looking more closely at his business operations and where he might cut spending, such as in liability insurance for his funeral home and limousine fleet ”“ “things we”™ve never looked at.”
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At a recent convention of the New York state Funeral Directors Association, “Most people did complain” about doing business in the current economy. “It”™s mostly because of the higher costs” for items such as health insurance and fuel, Fiorillo said. “The sense is that the recession is having an impact on it.”
“I personally really haven”™t noticed it at my place,” he said.?“We”™re thought to be a recession-proof business,” said Farenga in Yonkers. “It”™s true to a degree. We are a necessity.” But their necessary services have not been needed as often in a country with a declining death rate, Farenga and other funeral directors said.
“The biggest factor is that since 1990, the death rate in this country has gone steadily down,” said Farenga. “There has been a significant loss of volume in the past years in my business. The drop in volume has been more significant than the drop in income. Together, it”™s a significant number.”
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The national death rate is expected to begin increasing by 2020, according to the National Funeral Directors Association and National Center for Health Statistics. More immediately, a likely surge in the death rate in the event of an N1H1 virus pandemic this fall and winter has prompted the Metropolitan Funeral Directors Association to hold seminars for funeral directors in the region. They have been told of possible casket shortages, burials without funerals to avoid large gatherings and sickness that could reduce their own needed ranks as well, Farenga said.
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At Farenga Brothers Inc., which employs about 25 full-time and part-time staff, the owner has frozen salaries in the recession. “My biggest expense is labor,” he said.
For customers, “My intention is to freeze prices, especially service charges which I totally control, for as long as I can in 2010. That might not be a good strategy for some people. I figure by doing that, it might draw more volume than dollars. I”™d rather have volume than dollars. I”™d rather service more families.”
Farenga said many funeral homes, especially in New York City, have closed in recent years because of the real estate market and soaring property values for development. “It”™s been my biggest competition in buying a business, the real estate market.”
“For me to outbid the real estate people, it would take four generations just to recover the money,” he said.
