How can you use cell tower lease market rents to your advantage when discussing your cell tower lease with a cell tower company?
One thing the cell tower company will never use to its disadvantage is so-called cell tower lease market rent. Most property owners are searching the internet to find out the average or so-called market cell tower lease rent rate in their area, but let’s be clear – there is no such thing as cell tower lease market or average rent.
Don’t Follow Market Rents
Even if you averaged the cell tower lease rents in your area and got a particular amount, that is not taking into account that each of those cell tower lease agreements have different terms, lease different amounts of property, have different types of towers, telecom equipment, number of subtenants, etc.
Cell tower lease market, or average rent, should not be used by a property owner to negotiate a new cell tower lease or renegotiate an existing one. A property owner should be the exception and not the rule when structuring a cell tower lease agreement. Following so-called comparable cell tower rents in your “market” not only results in a property owner being undervalued on the first day of the cell tower lease agreement, but throughout the lease term.
Not Representative of Real Value
Our firm has had many discussions with cell tower companies, and when they make an offer and say it is based upon the average or market cell tower lease rent being paid in the area, we ask if that cell tower company or wireless carrier would go out to other property owners who have existing cell towers in the area with cell tower rent rates that are below the average market rent rate that they have provided our client and offer to raise those property owners’ cell tower lease rent to the amount that they are presenting as the standard in the area?
The answer to that question has always and continues to be no, definitely not.
An Un-Level Playing Field
Cell tower companies and wireless carriers work very hard to make sure that cell tower lease rent information is not readily available and even go to the extreme of restricting property owner’s ability to share that information with others, and, if they do, they would be subject to legal action.
Cell tower companies and wireless carriers understand that if property owners had access to what other property owners are getting paid that they would find out that market or average cell tower rents don’t matter, as even the cell tower companies and wireless carriers pay extremely varied rental rates in the same area based upon of a multitude of different variables, but the most important is the value of the individual cell tower site to that particular cell tower company or wireless carrier.
The rent you collect under a cell tower lease agreement should never depend on the average cell tower lease rates of neighboring properties, but on the value of your site.
Get More Rent & Better Terms
Vertical Consultants works with property owners across the United States to maximize the cell tower rents that they receive under any cell tower agreement, whether a proposed new lease or an established existing one. Vertical Consultant is ready to help you understand the opportunities and risks that come with leasing your land to a cell tower company.
Contact us today to get a free cell tower lease review and follow-up phone consultation.
Get More Money! Get a Better Lease!! Get Vertical!!!
