As a landlord considering a market rent increase for a cell tower lease extension, there are several important factors that you should take into account to ensure that the new rent reflects the true value of the lease. Here are ten such factors, with an explanation for each:

• Location and Demand: The desirability of the site's location, based on population density and coverage needs, can greatly affect rent. High-demand areas typically command higher rents. Researching local market demand and how other nearby towers are priced can provide a baseline.

• Carrier Profitability from the Site: Understanding how crucial your site is to the carrier's network can give you leverage. If the carrier generates significant revenue from the equipment on your land, you may have room to negotiate higher rent.

• Co-location Potential: If there is potential for additional carriers to co-locate on the tower, this increases the value of the tower to the operator and thus should impact the rent.

• Lease Expiration Urgency: The closer the lease is to its expiration date, the more urgency the tenant may have to secure an extension, which can provide leverage in negotiating rent increases.

• Current Market Rates: Being aware of the current market rates for new tower leases can help set a benchmark for your lease extension. Rates can be influenced by factors such as industry growth, inflation, and changes in technology.

• Inflation and Cost of Living Increases: The rate of inflation and cost of living increases should be factored into the new rent to ensure that the value of the lease income does not diminish over time.

• Technological Changes: Advances in technology can impact the need for towers or the amount of equipment a carrier needs to install. 5G technology, for instance, may require more equipment space, potentially justifying higher rents.

• Replacement Cost: Consider the cost for the tenant to replace your site with a new location. High replacement costs can justify higher rents as moving and constructing a new site is often significantly more expensive than paying increased rent.

• Zoning and Permitting Challenges: If new towers face significant zoning and permitting challenges in your area, this increases the value of existing sites and can be used to justify higher rents.

• Comparable Lease Data: Research comparable lease data from reliable industry sources to understand the lease rates for similar properties in your region. This data can be leveraged during negotiations.

It's important to note that it may be necessary to consult with industry experts or use professional services that specialize in cell tower lease consulting to obtain the most accurate and up-to-date information. CSA offers free consultations for curious landlords who want to know more about the true value of their cell tower asset.

Have question, need answers? Email info@cellsiteappraiser.com or Call 213-986-7620 Today

Property owners will tell you, getting a new 5G cell tower lease is like winning the lottery, but a windfall can quickly turn into a nightmare if landlords fail to include the right language covering key lease terms that will cause problems in the future if not addressed today.

So, before you start celebrating, take a deep breath and think about what's going on at your site and how it will affect other tenants (if any) who may be sharing your property. With so much competition out there, landlords may feel they have no choice but to offer up their properties at rates and terms they would never offer other tenants. So if you're not careful, you could end up getting yourself into a situation where you have the tail wagging the dog when comes to what you can or can not do on your property after signing a cell tower lease.

Here are some things you need to consider before signing off on any new tower lease:

• Right to Relocate - Most cell tower leases require the landlord to give wireless tenants 24/7 access to their equipment while tenants are rarely obligated to move their equipment to allow future development. Why is this a problem? Unlike traditional 2,5, or 10 year commercial leases, wireless leases offered by AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile can be as long as 30 years and have little if any way for landlords to cancel their wireless lease. So, if you don’t secure the right to relocate the cell tower, you could be limited or denied the ability to develop your property over the next 30 years. Moreover, this omission could impact your ability to sell your property to a buyer who intends to develop your property after purchase.

• Maintenance and Upgrades - Wireless tenants like American Tower or Crown Castle periodically need to repair, improve or upgrade their tower equipment. Depending on the project this may require heavy lifts, cranes, supplies or materials to be placed outside the tenants leased area for extend periods of time with construction work occurring on the tenants schedule with little or no concern for other tenants. Landlords who fail to require wireless tenants to have prior written approval for tenant improvements that require use of property outside the tenants leased area face the risk of having wireless tenant equipment blocking or occupying key areas of the property causing business disruptions for the landlord and or other tenants.

• Assignability - Landlords often miss terms that allow the wireless tenant to assign their lease to an unaffiliated third party without prior consent or landlord approval. This could be a costly mistake for landlords who want to increase revenue by adding new tenants because by allowing the tenant to transfer the tenant can sell their leasehold interest to another and profit from another party who may have leased from the landlord directly. In some cases, wireless tenants like Verizon have sold their interest via MLA’s (Master Lease Agreements) to tower companies like SBA or Crown Castle then they lease back on same tower at a lower rent without having to pay additional rent to the landlord and this is all due to poor or no lease language that prevents this from happening in the first place.

Key Takeaway - It’s easy to see how unknowing landlords can lose tremendous value if they don’t understand how a tower lease can impact their property both now and the future.

CSA recommends a site evaluation for any landlord who is interested in adding or is currently negotiating lease terms with a wireless tenant and no instance should a landlord negotiate without a cell tower professional on their side who knows how best to protect your properties value while maximizing your cell tower income. Contact CSA today if you would like to know more about how we can help.

Happy New Year to all! Now that 2021 is here, big things are coming in the world wireless infrastructure. For one, AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile are all upgrading and building new sites in support of 5G. Second, Dish Wireless will enter the market with help of Crown Castle and others to begin building 20,000 new cell sites. With all of this activity there are three things all cell tower landlords need to know:

A) Upgrades are coming and your consent maybe required - The carriers will need to change antennas and upgrade equipment and in many cases these upgrades will require the property owners consent. This maybe an opportunity to increase your rent and or improve your lease terms so don’t miss the opportunity.

B) Lease extensions are a must - Tower companies like SBA and American Tower are marketing available space on your tower but they need at least 15 years remaining on your lease in order to do so. Landlords who know this have the potential of adding rent and better lease terms. If you receive a request to extend your lease, don’t agree or sign anything unless you have a cell site professional on your side to make sure your site stays at or above market rate.

C) Terminations are coming - Despite all of the positive activity, there will be many tower lease terminations in the years to come. As the carriers increase the number of small cells on lamp posts and telephone pools, the carriers will look to remove expensive and or redundant cell towers particularly Sprint and T-Mobile cell towers due to the recent merger. Now is good time to contact to a cell site professional to determine if your site is in the cross hairs and what you can do to protect the long term valued of your lease.

As we continue on into 2021, we’ll keep you posted on all the latest developments. If you have questions, contact CSA today and we’ll be glad to explain what you have in your lease.

All of the carriers have begun building and upgrading their cell sites for 5G. That means thousands of sites across the country will need to among other things swap out antenna, add fiber internet and or add back generators. For many sites, upgrades require the consent of the landlord to have contractors come on site to conduct the upgrade.

Landlords need to be aware of their rights and the rights of their tenant. Improvements that call for the use of additional space for example typically comes with additional rent paid to the landlord, if they ask. That said, if the tenant can get additional space they’ll take it. That’s why landlords should have any request for consent reviewed by a cell site professional who understands the request and to determine if any additional rent is due to the landlord. CSA can help, contact us if you receive a letter of call asking for permission to make changes to your site.

The Denver Business Journal reports, Dish Wireless has finalized a deal with Crown Castle the nations second largest wireless tower owner. Under the terms of the deal, Dish Wireless will have access to Crown castles towers, fiber and development services.

Dave Mayo, Dish executive vice president of network development is quoted as saying, "The announcement of Crown Castle as our first tower partner marks an important milestone for Dish as we set our sights on building a first-of-its-kind 5G network in the U.S.".

The deal puts Dish on track to meet its goal of building new 15,000 5G cell sites by 2023. Crown castle currently owns over 40,000 towers according to a recent press release.

This is good news for Crown Castle landlords who stand to loose Sprint due to the T-Mobile/Sprint merger. This deal will likely look to replace lost Sprint sites with new Dish wireless co-located sites. Time will tell, but this is a good sign for tower landlords.

Since population densities in the immediate area of self-storage locations are minimal, the process of getting these locations zoned and approved for cell site placement is much easier than more densely populated locations.

5G speed and cell-tower upgrades are around the corner. If your self-storage property has a cell-tower lease agreement, learn how you might be able to capitalize on these coming changes.

https://www.insideselfstorage.com/cell-towers/how-self-storage-owners-can-benefit-upgraded-5g-cell-tower-leases.

AT&T and Verizon have jointly agreed to build hundreds of new cell towers with Tillman Infrastructure, a company founded last year by Sanjiv Ahuja’s Tillman Global Holdings.

This potentially bad news for cell site landlords in the following ways:

1. You are now at greater risk of losing their cell sites if you have a single tenant AT&T/Verizon tower with American Tower or Crown Castle as the operator because AT&T/Verizon will likely construct a new tower where they share one base rent and not renew/extend their leases with American Tower or Crown Castle

2. The carriers will use this alliance to drive down rent increases resulting from lease extensions as they now have a more options to move a high rent cell tower.

3. This leaves American Tower and Crown Castle stuck between offering Landlords enough of a rent increase to extend knowing that AT&T / Verizon will not agree to increase their rent more than what they would pay if they moved to another location and shared the costs.

4. Both Verizon and AT&T are committed to reducing their network operating costs which will mean the eventual elimination of high rent tower locations.   

For more info go to this RCR Wireless Article. 

Published reports indicate AT&T has terms in place for an acquisition of Time Warner valued at $85 billion

http://www.rcrwireless.com/20161021/carriers/report-att-85b-deal-place-acquire-time-warner-tag2

Embed Block

Add an embed URL or code. Learn more

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's statement to U.S. Senate on Oversight of the Federal Communications Commission

http://www.itworld.com/article/3120730/mobile-wireless/fcc-chairs-update-on-5g-wireless-robocalls-business-data-services-more.html

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich spoke to packed crowd at the Mobile World Conference in Shanghai, China. During his speech, Krzanich outline the critical need for 5G deployment has billions of iOT (Internet of Things) devices come online managing everything from driverless cars to home security and environmental control systems. Click the image to read more  

The Federal Communications Commission’s 600 MHz incentive auction entered its eighth round of bidding having scored more than $11.5 billion in total auction proceeds connected to “winning” bids, with just under $11 billion in net auction proceeds.