This American author’s observation seems tailor-made for Australia’s obsession with real estate and anything tangibly related, such as renovations, interest rates and the neighbour’s auction result.

Las week, as reported in The Daily Advertiser, we learned that the profits and pitfalls of real estate apply just as much to the dearly departed as those in the land of the living.

Cr Dan Hayes raised the spectre of NSW Parliament’s failure to move that cemetery operators be prohibited from digging up human remains and reselling the associated burial plots.

The NSW Government’s Cemeteries and Crematoria Act since at least 2012 has defined what most people would call a ‘final resting place’ as a “renewable interment right” with “an initial term of between 25 and 99 years”.

If relatives can’t be found or they won't pay for another renewable internment right, then a “disturbance or removal of human remains” as the legislation puts it, can commence.

Not even a headstone or plaque is safe as the “cemetery operator is to retain a memorial to a deceased person...for five years...(unless it is sooner reclaimed by a person entitled to reclaim it)”.

Even in death, it seems, the prospect of eviction can hang over those without the deeds to their home.

One of Wagga City Council’s major infrastructure projects is an expansion of the Wagga Lawn Cemetery and Crematorium.

At least part of the project’s $570,000 budget will go towards meeting demand over the next five years with 1500 new plots.

It might seem ghoulish, but looking at the practicalities and costs associated with cemeteries can give an insight as to why there’s a lot of fine print to allow the removal of non-paying ‘clients’.

Thanks to an ageing population and online ancestry records, more families are bound to end up with awkward letters asking to pay for another 25 to 99 years in a cemetery for a close or distant relative.