Dive summary:

• Every year in the U.S., hundreds of houses of worship are sold, either because congregations need or want different facilities or banks foreclose.
• It is a niche market, but some of the churches are being converted into multifamily housing, often with huge amounts of floor space, and the idea has its own website.
• One difficult issue with moving into quarters in many converted churches is heating, which 30- or 40-foot ceilings make challenging.

From the article:

In 2000, there were 19,236 Roman Catholic parishes across the U.S.; that figure fell to 17,644 by 2012, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, a nonprofit research organization that compiles church statistics. ...