Cell Site Leases...
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

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Tower Genius, cell site lease experts. 888-313-9750

Tower Genius knows cell site leases. We provide cell site leasing consultations for property owners, landlords and their attorneys, and also provide transactional coaching services for cell site landlords who have be contacted about getting a cell site leased on the building rooftop or property by Verizon Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular and DISH Wireless.  

Tower Genius is an independent and carrier neutral cell site consultancy, and we have no conflicts of interest whatsoever. What does that mean for you? In simple terms, we don't work both sides of the fence (like many of the other "cell site consultants" in this industry). We provide no services to carriers or to cell site  or tower companies, or to cellular site lease buyout companies. We only work for you as your coach, advisor or your wireless leasing consultant. This way we can fight with them if needed on your behalf and not have to worry about hurting somebody's feelings at T-Mobile, Verizon or AT&T, because we don't have our hands out begging for site acquisition, zoning or construction work from them. That gives us leverage to work in your best interests.  We help cell site landlords make sure that they are getting a fair deal in the David and Goliath cat and mouse game of cell site leasing to "Big Wireless". 

Cell Site Leases:
The Good...

Cellular leases provide ancillary income on space that in most cases you were not generating any income from. It is for all intents and purposes, found money.  The carriers invest heavily in the expensive telecom equipment that is deployed on your rooftop or on the cell tower that they build on your land, so they are not looking for a short-term lease like a typical commercial tenant. Expect to sign a lease agreement for 4 or 5 consecutive 5-year terms. They will of course ask for more. You can enjoy the cell site income over a generation or longer, or you can turn around and sell your cellular site lease rental stream for a lump sum payment to a cell lease site buyer or cell tower lease buyout companies or hedge fund for six or seven figures. 

Cell Site Leasing:
The Bad...

As in any industry where there is fast money to be made, there are bad eggs, and the cell site leasing industry is no different. Wireless carriers often hire less than professional leasing agents who are incentivized to offer you  cellular leasing terms that can easily cost you six figures in lost revenue over the term of your lease if you're not paying attention during negotiations. If you are slow to respond or unprepared to negotiate your cellular lease, or if you go through the expense of hiring an expensive attorney, that may blow the deal for you by slowing down the process or making absurd requests from the carrier. 

Cell Site Leases:
The Ugly...

Wireless landlords are contacted every day by 3rd party cell site leasing consultants who are paid large commissions by T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon Wireless to reduce your cell site rent by ten to thirty percent. These Lease Optimization Companies ask for things like your "voluntary participation" in their "lease optimization program" or offer you cell site "rent guarantees" in exchange for signing on the dotted line, to "protect the future viability" of their cell site and your rental stream.

While your participation in these programs is completely "voluntary", they always remind cell tower landlords that choosing to "opt-out" of their "voluntary" rent reduction program will result in your property location to be referred over to their "relocation department" for "alternative site review", and that they may exercise their right to terminate the lease.

The worse the offer is that you end up accepting to reduce the rent on you current cell tower lease, the higher their commissions are. Basically the more they SCREW YOU, the more money the carriers pay them. And they are rumored to receive residual payments.  The wireless carriers such as AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless,  although functioning as your tenant, tries to take advantage of your assumed lack of wireless infrastructure related knowledge and try to force their will and terms upon you or they claim that they can not guarantee that they will need your cell site in the future if they have to keep on paying these high rental payments.

And while we are on the subject of talking about ugly.... the wife of one of the CEO's of one of these lease buyout companies owns her own cell site lease buyout company and may even run it out of her Aspen Colorado-area ski chalet. So one one side of the coin the these guys benefit from squashing cell site landlords with rent reductions while on the other side they are buying cell site easements for significant lump sum payments. Kind of makes you want to throw up a little.

But wait, there's more...

Additionally as the tower management companies and wireless carriers are starting to mature into established businesses, they are now looking to show their masters on Wall Street that they are lean and profitable. They look for the low hanging fruit which is easy to target for cost savings and reductions in the biggest area of pain for their shareholders, cell tower rental overheads. Wireless carriers and cell tower companies are all looking to reduce costs and maximize profits, and we can tell you that they do not have your best interests in mind.  

Do You Need Cell Site Lease Consulting Services?

The top-4 areas that rooftop cell site landlords need assistance with are the variety of offers that they are presented with:

1. Low-ball cell site lease offers on rooftops and properties 

2. Intimidating cell site lease rent reduction letters 

3. Confusing cell site lease buyout offers to sell cell tower easements 

4. What to charge for cell site equipment upgrades

6. Expiring cell site lease agreements and renewals

7. Cell site rental rates and what are others getting near me

Tower Genius Can Help.

Tower Genius LLC was founded by Steve Kazella and Kevin Donohue to help wireless landlords and future wireless landlords get a fair and balanced cell tower lease deals and maximize the values of their cell site rental contracts. Have specific questions concerning cell site leases? We can help. Contact us about your cell site leases.