I have been approached by a major cell phone company about leasing a small piece of my property for the placement of a 260 ft lattice cell phone tower.

Right now, they're scouting for a site and want to send an evaluator out to pick an area that they think may be suitable to their needs. I agreed to let them come out, but I don't know squat about dealing with or leasing to a cell phone company. There's a lot of stuff on the internet from folks who want to help you negotiate your lease (for a fee, of course).

So, TWW braintrust, educate me. Surely, someone knows about this kind of stuff.

8/1/2012 5:58:46 PM

We have a lease on our land. Well, had actually. It was like $5000 a year, until they bought us out for 100yrs for $99,000. We figure in 100yrs they wont be using cell phone towers so we took them up on it.

Damn thing is ugly as shit at first, but you do get used to looking at it.

8/1/2012 7:27:41 PM

Right now, they're in the scouting phase. They haven't picked an exact site yet, but I'm hesitant because the tower will definitely be visible from my house. I'm hoping that they're going to want to put it on the other side of the woods because at least then, it won't be such an eye sore.

8/1/2012 7:41:39 PM

wherever they put it, there's going to be routine traffic going to and from the tower site. The concrete trucks and cranes they bring in to construct the tower will also be pretty hefty. Make sure to evaluate their maintenance access agreements just as hard as the land agreement. If they're going by your house, negotiate a new driveway out of the deal.

They may put language in the contract stating that they have rights to clear adjacent to the tower or limit you from building within the fall radius of the tower. If so, the acre they bought from you just turned into 5 acres of land that's now only suitable for farming.

They're going to put the tower at the highest elevation on your property that they can build an access road to and get their bulk communication feeders and power into. They're not going to want to negotiate tower location for aesthetics reasons unless you're offering a site that has the same properties as their scout site.

8/1/2012 7:55:55 PM

Wait til you grow a third eye ball.

8/1/2012 8:04:15 PM

I would let them build whatever the fuck they want on my property for 5k/mo or 99k/100yrs.

OH HAI CAN I GIVE U $60,000.00 A YR 2 LOOK @ MY UGLY TOWERZ?

K THX. BAI

8/1/2012 8:14:38 PM

5k/mo year

8/1/2012 8:20:01 PM

Why would you sell out for 99k 100 year?

20 years you would have 100k.

[Edited on August 1, 2012 at 8:26 PM. Reason : n]

8/1/2012 8:25:22 PM

What company?  Crown Castle? American Tower?

8/1/2012 8:27:45 PM

^^Grandmother passed away (it is her land) and was simpler. Like I said, we've already had it for 15 years and we dont figure they will be using the tower in another 20-40yrs (or we'll be moved away).

We wanted the money now, simple as that. Taxes on 300ac of land is outrageous, this helps with that.

8/1/2012 8:31:52 PM

i've got a cousin (some sort of kin to me) with one on her land. my aunt lives 2 houses down from there, my mom lives in the next house, and my grandparents live in the next house. anyway, you rarely see anybody going back there. if it was on a remote spot on my property, i'd definitely do it, but i wouldn't want it within probably 1/4 mile of my house. shit's an eyesore.

8/1/2012 9:11:34 PM

Quote :

"Why would you sell out for 99k 100 year? 20 years you would have 100k."

it's not a simple, linear relationship like that, due to future value of money and opportunity costs.

[Edited on August 1, 2012 at 9:21 PM. Reason : let alone the risk factor...they took the bird in the hand.]

8/1/2012 9:21:22 PM

whatever amount they offer, double it and that's what they would still be willing to pay

i wouldn't take anything less than 100k YOU can count on and use (not heirs), no matter the length

8/1/2012 9:31:25 PM

^that works if your spot is the one they really want.

8/1/2012 10:08:14 PM

^agree.

It's a double edged sword. They want your land if they've approached you, and you probably can get them to come up a bit In rent, but if you go get lawyered up, demanding as hell, and think you're gonna negotiate the hell out of them, they'll go to your neighbor a few miles away instead.

They generally will flock towards the agreeable, non demanding, and non lawyered up landowner if they can just so they can maximize profit and don't have to make special concessions, etc. I think there is some leverage there for the landowner, but unless they have no other option in the area, it's really hard to negotiate from any position of power.

[Edited on August 1, 2012 at 10:24 PM. Reason : Aa]

8/1/2012 10:20:49 PM

They can afford several thousand a month. I would not take only several thousand per year. Find out what carriers and how many will go on the tower. I see these sold as income producing properties and there is a strong market for them. I'm a commercial real estate broker and am happy to talk about it in more detail in person.

[Edited on August 1, 2012 at 10:59 PM. Reason : ]

8/1/2012 10:59:35 PM

Make sure you negotiate to have most of the liability be on them in case that thing falls down or gets knocked down in the future.

8/1/2012 11:06:45 PM

the thing is, if you don't take it, chances are your neighbor will and you'll still have to look at the thing. might as well paid for it.

8/1/2012 11:13:13 PM

How long is the lease?

They spend $Alaska on building the tower so I am assuming this is a long term commitment that devalues your property.

8/1/2012 11:30:27 PM

Generally, they're going to look for 20-30 years more than likely. No point in building the tower and moving it in 5 years. Once it's built, the power shifts to the landowner in renegotiating the lease once it expires.. "It's expensive to move and now the landowner wants $5000 per month???????" scenario, for instance. They will ensure they get a good return on the Initial investment. If they have to move it at the end of the lease because the landowner doesn't want it any more, they still come out ok

One thing to keep in mind is the time value of money. 20 years from now, the rent they pay today might be peanuts. Might want to consider asking for an escalator on the rent to keep pace with inflation. That's not an unreasonable request.

And the owner will be liable for any damages if the thing falls, not the landowner. Obviously confirm this in the contract, but you won't be liable for anything like that. Same with maintenance cost, power, etc.

one thing I would also worry about. Say the company goes belly up and quits paying.... What now? Who pays to take that down if no one else buys it? (obviously assuming technology wipes out any need for towers, otherwise there'd be a buyer). You have a lot of valuable ugly scrap metal, but it would still cost more to take it down. I don't know the answer as to what happens, but worth considering. This is an extreme condition, but imagine where technology will be in 20-30 years. What if towers become obsolete and no one wants the thing? Yard art? These are long term leases!



[Edited on August 2, 2012 at 12:07 AM. Reason : Aa]

8/1/2012 11:43:04 PM

Cell towers pull in several thousand a month in rent (assuming they're got a good number of tenants) but that's not what they're going to pay you to lease your land. If you tell them you want thousands of dollars a month they will go somewhere else unless you're in a hot area and their last resort (you probably aren't). I would see them paying a couple thousand a month in an area of Cary with something of a dead zone, and unless you're in a similar area I'd only expect a modest increase over what they've already offered. A thousand a month is the max I'd expect them to pay anywhere that isn't an incredibly under-served or very urban area.

For the long-term, consider that the tower may have to be modified or reinforced over its life span, so from time to time there may be small construction crews on-site performing various types of work on the tower (with varying levels of noise). This would only be for (at most) a few weeks at a time and hopefully only once a year at most (and only several years after the tower is built, assuming this carrier can even get the tower to max capacity). I would consider asking the company how many carriers the tower will be built to support. I would expect an answer of 4-6 if it's a big tower company like American Tower or Crown Castle. They will probably inspect the tower every 4-8 years and perform annual maintenance on it in the form of changing out light bulbs and strobe lamps (the tower they want to build is over 200 ft tall, which I think is the FAA minimum for lighting up a tower). They will likely leave you alone and I recommend finding a spot on your property where they can enter and exit without disturbing you (i.e. don't give them a driveway easement that runs right past your house). From time to time the company's field operations technicians may be on-site with a possible tenant to do a site walk and determine if they have space for the tenant in their leased compound area, if there's room on the tower, etc.

The initial lease they offer you may only be for X years, but they will probably come back regularly and renew this lease so look at it as a very long term thing. See if there are provisions in the lease to scale up the rent they pay you over time based on various economic factors. The company I work for has tower leases going back to the 1940s (the old AT&T long lines towers that were supposed to survive indirect nuclear blasts) and we're still paying people and renewing leases. Terrestrial communications towers aren't going anywhere, and demand has only increased as these higher bandwidth 4G systems apparently don't quite have the range of the older cellular technologies (so more towers are needed). Once you have a tower built, that land becomes very valuable to the company because rebuilding a tower isn't cheap and the interruption in service will piss off your tenants. Don't think that you can then strong-arm them when your lease is up as they will probably tear down the tower and rebuild it a few hundred feet away on an adjacent property and you'll lose your rent income. Many jurisdictions are and will be bigger and bigger pains about getting towers built and keeping them built or replacing them depending on where you are.

I think asking for some minor concessions wouldn't be ridiculous like asking for some basic landscaping around the tower site to improve its appearance. You may even be able to ask them to build a more opaque fence around the tower compound so you don't have to see it (a wood fence, a chain link fence with that plastic sheeting just so you can't see in, whatever). If they won't do it, consider planting some screening plants around the tower just so you can't see it as clearly from your house. The tower itself will be kind of an eyesore. Make sure it's not too close to your house. Keep it much farther away than the fall zone, I mean this thing is 260'x26' or so and it's going to be rather intimidating if it's easily visible from the house. Make sure to check and see whether they are planning on extending the tower beyond its 260 ft height one day and plan accordingly (e.g. plant some taller-growing trees between you and the tower ).

If you're curious what the hell might be going there, it will probably look something like this:

http://www.rohnnet.com/files/SSV.jpg - These towers are about 300' tall I think.

http://www.hhvrtowers.com/images/Tower.jpg - This is a design used by Pirod. They're now owned by Valmont, but the legs on this one look a little different.

It probably won't look like this:

http://farm9.static.flickr.com/8001/7529101344_1ecdba9208.jpg - Unless your property is near the peak of a mountain or sizable hill I wouldn't expect it to look like this. A lot of towers my company has in California end up looking like this.

http://www.freefoto.com/images/04/23/04_23_93---Microwave-Communication-Tower_web.jpg - You may see some towers like these around. This is not what they're building on your property, I can almost guarantee it.

Ask away with any more specific questions you might have. I'm a structural engineer that works with these types of towers every day, quite possibly for the company that is looking to build on your land. To answer the most obvious structural-related questions you might have: The tower will be designed to a building standard that will keep the tower safe with something like a 700-1200 mean recurrence interval storm. If you're in central north carolina, it's probably designed to withstand 90 mph gusting wind speeds (this is a 50 year mean recurrence interval) with a factor of safety of 2-4. The only thing that would knock it down would be a tornado (and no there's no economical way to build them to withstand those forces). A hurricane is extremely unlikely to be a problem, even a very strong one as towers in hurricane regions are designed with enhanced factors of safety (the building codes take this into account by increasing the design wind speeds). As was previously mentioned, there's usually a fall zone associated with a tower like this that you'll be staying out of (you could probably farm the land adjacent to the tower but I wouldn't recommend building permanent structures next to it even if they let you). You should be aware that there's a very low risk of attracting vagrants with a tower on your property because they'll jump the fence and steal the grounding wires, so if possible I recommend you keep your property wooded or fenced all around, especially at the access road leading up to the tower (might be good to ask the cell company to put a locking gate at the entrance to the tower to discourage this sort of thing).

If you're curious just how big the things they're putting on that tower will be, the new 4G panels are usually about 8'x1'x0.5' (some are 2' wide, taller, shorter) and they will probably put 3-12 of these at each elevation where a tenant will be installed. They'll space them about ten feet apart, and they will mount these panels on frames that are about 12.5' wide and 3' deep. They'll put one frame per leg. There will probably be one carrier on the tower to start and maybe two more to follow within a few years. More carriers will follow in time if you're near a population center or interstate highway. There's a possibility that they will be expanding their leased ground space over time which could get you more money, but that's many years down the road (and I'd guess the tower they build will have plenty of extra capacity and room in the compound to match).

Bear in mind I'm providing this information unofficially to do whatever you want with it, but I'd imagine it's more information than what the cell company has provided you thus far. I'm not providing this as official advice from my company if you just so happen to be speaking with them (because I'm not going to sugar coat it where they might).

8/2/2012 12:47:38 AM

^I am in outdoor sales...

8/2/2012 1:00:07 AM

...and a new meme is born???

8/2/2012 1:04:49 AM

one of the more helpful walls of text i've seen.

8/2/2012 7:47:50 AM

Keep in mind you'll probably always have amazing cell phone reception in your house!

8/2/2012 9:25:23 AM

You guys are awesome! I'm on my mobile right now, but I'll post responses when I'm at my computer. I just wanted to know that your input is appreciated.

8/2/2012 9:56:05 AM

do you plan on ever moving out of your house? I wonder how this will affect the value of your house/property.

Also, I'm guessing you would transfer the lease to the new homeowner, so it could potentially be a little bit of a selling point

8/2/2012 10:39:45 AM

We have no plans to ever sell the house or attached farm. We are exactly where were want to be and raise our children. The house is paid for and as long as the lease on the farm makes enough to cover the property taxes, we are good. With the cell tower, it is going to go up somewhere out here like it or not. While it is something I wouldn't have gone after myself, if it is going up and not going to put me through a lot of trouble, I may as well be the one pulling the monthly income off of it.

[Edited on August 2, 2012 at 12:39 PM. Reason : gr phone. ]

8/2/2012 12:37:47 PM

Ask the Duggars. They do this.

8/2/2012 5:32:40 PM

so that's how they're able to afford all those babies.

8/2/2012 6:16:14 PM

I've contacted Sprint about putting one on the land behind our store here in Chocowinity. Bastards still haven't replied, but I'm hopeful.

8/2/2012 8:35:08 PM

Ive been in the tower business for 8 yrs and midstorm said pretty much all you need to know. Just make sure you work a deal that escalates yearly and per tenant. The more tenants they have the more maintenance/ modifications they will have to do so be prepared for that and make sure you are compensated for it.

8/3/2012 12:36:16 AM