Buying a funeral home in Jacksonville and Northeast Florida

• A steady number of calls per year in a community where the home is well known. Families often return to the home that served their parents.
• A strong preneed book (contracts sold in advance), properly held in trust or insured, priced to cover future costs. Today's preneed sales are tomorrow's calls.
• A funeral director in charge who is staying, plus licensed staff who can step in.
• Staff families trust: the director who sat with them is often the reason they come back.
• Facilities in good repair, with room for visitation, and a well-run crematory if it has one.
• Services and prices that suit local demand, including cremation options.
• A clean record with state regulators.
• Good relationships with hospitals, hospices, churches and cemeteries.

• Calls per year for five years, by type (burial, cremation, direct cremation), and average revenue per call.
• The preneed book: how many contracts, what they promise, how each is funded, and how the trust balance compares with today's cost of delivering those services. A shortfall is a liability you inherit.
• Trust statements, insurance policy assignments and DFS examination reports.
• Every funeral director's and embalmer's license, and the plans of the director in charge.
• Crematory equipment, permits and maintenance records.
• Building condition, vehicles and any environmental issues.
• Complaints and lawsuits, and whether price lists and paperwork follow the FTC Funeral Rule.
• Which community relationships rest on the owner personally.
• Insurance-funded preneed policies: which insurer issued them, and whether they're assigned to the funeral home.

• How many calls do you handle a year, and how has that changed?
• How many preneed contracts are outstanding, and how are they funded?
• Who's your funeral director in charge, and do they plan to stay?
• Do you own a crematory, or contract with one?
• How do today's prices compare with what your preneed contracts promised?
• How do new families find you, and what do they say?
• How many of your community relationships run through you personally?

This region covers Duval, St. Johns, Clay, Nassau, Baker and Putnam counties: Jacksonville, Jacksonville Beach, St. Augustine, Ponte Vedra Beach, Orange Park, Fleming Island, Green Cove Springs, Fernandina Beach, Yulee, Macclenny and Palatka. Jacksonville merged with most of Duval County in 1968, which makes it the largest city by land area in the lower 48 states.

The economy leans on logistics, the Navy and financial services. Logistics runs through JAXPORT, major rail lines and the meeting of Interstates 95 and 10. The Navy has Naval Air Station Jacksonville and Naval Station Mayport. Insurance and health care matter too. St. Augustine, founded by the Spanish in 1565, and Amelia Island draw steady tourism. Trucking and logistics firms, the building trades, medical practices and home services all fit this market.

Northeast Florida is less seasonal than South or Southwest Florida, with fewer winter residents and more year-round employers. Direct hurricane landfalls have been less common here than on other parts of the coast, but storms still bring flooding along the St. Johns River and the beaches, so check insurance costs and flood zones.

Military families bring skilled workers and working spouses into the labor pool, though they also move on when orders change. St. Johns, Clay and Nassau have added the most new homes, and companies serving those suburbs have grown with them. Georgia is close, and some companies here serve customers across the state line. Work in Georgia may need Georgia licenses, so ask how much revenue comes from there and who holds those licenses.