Real estate prices aren't going down in every location. The cost of a burial plot seems to be rising nationally, for example.

In a community newspaper just outside of Cincinnati, Ohio, it's front page news. It's now more expensive to be buried in the local cemetery. If you live in my county, it now costs $500 to purchase a grave. It had been $450.

But it's not just around where I live. In Rolla, Missouri, they're thinking of sending the price for a grave from $300 to $1,000, which seems outrageous, considering that's more than a 300% jump. In DeRidder, Louisiana, all prices are going up 3.5%. And in Greene County, Indiana, it's going to soon cost more to be buried. The prices are also going up in Mount Vernon, Iowa. Anyway, you get the idea.

But there may be a silver lining in this. The problem may not be so much with the current economy (though that's not helping), but rates may be rising in cemeteries simply because not enough people are dying. That, at least, is what they've concluded at a cemetery in Portsmouth, England. And this not dying enough thing, that's a trend I think most of us could feel good about.