For Sale: Hundreds of Abandoned Churches. Great Prices. Need Work.

When Louis Cahill was growing up in southern Virginia, a neighbor bought an old Catholic chapel and turned it into a home, which fascinated him. So in 2022, when he and his wife Kathy were looking toward retirement, they decided to do the same. They were enamored with the soaring ceilings and massive timber beams found in houses of worship across the South.

“They build churches that way for a reason,” said Mr. Cahill, 62. “To uplift the spirit and to make people feel inspired.”

From their home base in Atlanta, the couple — both of whom grew up religious and eventually became atheists — scoured the Southeast. Finally, on a scouting trip last year, they stumbled upon the former Deyton Bend United Methodist Church in Green Mountain, N.C., a bohemian community in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The 3,127-square-foot brick structure, built in 1943 on about an acre, had just one bedroom. There was a kitchen downstairs, a meeting room, an open common space and a screened porch. It had been listed for $325,000 in May 2023, then reduced to $275,000 a few months later.

“There was something familiar and comfortable about the building,” said Ms. Cahill, who grew up Methodist. “It just smells like a church, which I really like.”

The Cahills bought it last November for just $232,000, joining a wave of buyers who are scooping up abandoned churches from coast to coast as congregations wither and disappear. Since about 2000, the number of Americans who belong to a church, synagogue or mosque has plummeted from around 70 percent to around 47 percent in 2021. The decline has been attributed to several colliding factors, including younger Americans rejecting organized religion, the rise of regional megachurches, internal church schisms, and even the Covid pandemic.