When it comes to a cell-tower lease, the one question that still baffles self-storage owners is how much rent should they receive. The answer lies not in looking at the value of having a cell tower on your property but the value and potential value of the use of your property to the company that wants to lease it for decades into the future.
Unlike other contracts you may enter, a typical cell-tower lease is lasting in nature and cannot be renegotiated when you believe the value of the use of your property has increased. It’s not a sprint but a marathon. As such, you need a short- and long-term strategy to get the most value from the partnership.
298% increase in cell rents. Vertical Consultants was the right choice. – Brad, StoreSmartSelf-Storage Cell Site Evaluations
The mistake many self-storage operators make is, being in the real estate business, they continue to track the elusive “market rent” figures when determining how much to charge a cell-tower company. To be crystal clear, there’s no such thing as market rent when it comes to a cell tower lease.
If you try to use comparable rents in your area, you’re using data that will only cause you to perpetuate under-valued rents that have been paid to property owners for the last few decades.
Simply put, what another property owner may have been paid doesn’t determine the value of your cell-tower lease. If you rely on this measure to determine how to negotiate a new or existing agreement, it can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more, over the life of the contract.
We highly recommend Vertical Consultants to self-storage owners. Results matter. – Ed, StorePlaceSo how does a self-storage operator get the best deal when it comes to cell-tower rent? The first step is turning the mirror toward the cell-tower company and looking at the value it gets from either building a cell tower on your property or continuing to have the right to lease your land.
Focus on structuring a lease that allows you to capture a portion of the value the cell-tower company derives from your land. This can be difficult if you’re unfamiliar with the telecom industry, particularly when you’re attempting to forecast how a cell-tower company will derive revenue in the future.
You may think this only means subtenant rents, but a cell-tower site may greatly increase in value without another wireless carrier even using the site.
If you want results contact Vertical Consultants. 250+% in our cell site rents. – Kevin, National Storage AffiliatesThey say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. That is basically what property owners of all types have been doing since the first cell tower lease was consummated back in the 1980’s.
