Selling Churches - When Getting Folks Into the Pews Fails, Selling The Property is Almost as Hard

http://www.therealestatebloggers.com/2006/12/28/selling-churches-when-getting-folks-into-the-pews-fails-selling-the-property-is-almost-as-hard/

[The Real Estate Bloggers] 25 Aug 2007--An interesting article in the AP discusses the difficulties in selling churches after the congregation declines or the demographics of an area change. The balance of getting the right price and having the buyer use the building for purposes that the church deems acceptable are a tough balance. In a younger day I went to the Limelight in Manhattan, a night club that was housed in an old church. Even in those days it was not the most comforting place to have a cocktail.

Now churches are fighting the battle of how to sell and who to sell to.

The building of St. Martin's in the Fields Episcopal Chuch in Mayfield, Kentucky has been for sale since 2005 when the church was closed and what was left of the congregation merged with the congregation of St. John's in Murray. From what I have been able to gather, St. Martin’s in the Fields was not able to replace the members who moved away or died. The location of the church is a poor one. It was built on a dead-end street in an older subdivision. Whoever located the church in the subdivision mistakenly assumed that the residents of the subdivision would attend the church since it was located near them. They did not consider how changes in the demographic make-up of the subdivision might effect the church. The dead-end street in the subdivision, isolating the church which might have fared better on a major artery, became a dead-end for the church.