Should I Sell / Lease Land for Cell Tower Use?

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Topic Author
lillycat
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Joined: Mon Aug 10, 2020 11:26 am

Should I Sell / Lease Land for Cell Tower Use?

Post by lillycat »

Ola BH Friends!

Well, I own some land in a rural area and got a letter from a company saying they were looking for land to put a cell tower on.
This company is the construction contractor, and the buyer / leasee they worked for was another company, Tilson. The tower would be used by
Verizon.

I know nothing about this topic! After the first phone call, I was told that an acre, or so, could be leased, long-term, or sold out of my land.
The lease would involve giving me a months rent for them to have a year or 2 lease option so they could do their due diligence and lease the land if worthy. To buy it, they would give an option fee and have some time to research and decide.

Online research yielded several companies that can “help”with this process. 1 promised to send me a report of rental rates paid for towers near my property. Good thing I gave them an alias email address and just a land line because they are now sending me emails about their services, but not the promised report.

Anyone know anything about this? I am all ears and thanks!
Silk McCue
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Re: Should I Sell / Lease Land for Cell Tower Use?

Post by Silk McCue »

Someone sent us a formal offer with terms. It wasn’t a whole bunch of money and the annual increases likely wouldn’t keep up with inflation. Also, I didn’t want to possibly impact the future sale of the land as it “might” be harder to find a buyer do to the presence of the tower.

Cheers
Topic Author
lillycat
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Re: Should I Sell / Lease Land for Cell Tower Use?

Post by lillycat »

Silk McCue wrote: Wed Mar 22, 2023 1:20 pm Someone sent us a formal offer with terms. It wasn’t a whole bunch of money and the annual increases likely wouldn’t keep up with inflation. Also, I didn’t want to possibly impact the future sale of the land as it “might” be harder to find a buyer do to the presence of the tower.

Cheers
Yes! Good point about this making the property harder to sell later. Thanks!
Jack FFR1846
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Re: Should I Sell / Lease Land for Cell Tower Use?

Post by Jack FFR1846 »

If you sell, will they pay to create a new plot with the town/county? They can take full responsibility for all costs including survey, legal, fees, deed change etc. I've done this and my part was signing a paper and I was done and just got a check for the property.

If you lease, how long would the lease be? On the good side, no plot changes are needed. Sure, if you go to sell, the buyer might not want that tower but perhaps they'd look at the lease money as a good thing.

Will leasing change the value of the property with the town/county in such a way that you now have a much higher property tax bill?
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adamthesmythe
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Re: Should I Sell / Lease Land for Cell Tower Use?

Post by adamthesmythe »

lillycat wrote: Wed Mar 22, 2023 1:14 pm 1 promised to send me a report of rental rates paid for towers near my property. Good thing I gave them an alias email address and just a land line because they are now sending me emails about their services, but not the promised report.
Of course not. They want something (money for the report, retaining them as agent).

If it were me- I would ask for a firm offer, with a note that I will not consider a revised offer later.

Probably it won't be impressive and then you can just forget about the whole thing.
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windaar
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Re: Should I Sell / Lease Land for Cell Tower Use?

Post by windaar »

It depends on why you have the property which you haven't told us.
Nobody knows nothing.
Topic Author
lillycat
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Re: Should I Sell / Lease Land for Cell Tower Use?

Post by lillycat »

windaar wrote: Wed Mar 22, 2023 1:58 pm It depends on why you have the property which you haven't told us.
Great point! I bought 20 acres a bit ago to break it up into 2 10 acre tracts and sell via owner finance, and hold the note.
I mentioned this letter to my realtor who has the tracts up for sale. He just said congrats and that he knew of clients who got
lease payments but had not negotiated the deals.

But I can’t help thinking that a cell tower would make a plot less desirable for sale.
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snackdog
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Re: Should I Sell / Lease Land for Cell Tower Use?

Post by snackdog »

A cell tower lease can be a long term cash cow and ADD real estate value. Refuse to sign a long term lease. Hold their feet to the fire 1-2 years at a time. Act as naive as possible to them. Tell them your granddaddy didn't like long leases. Once they build their tower, start boiling the frog with rent increases every year. It can be very lucrative.
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ram
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Re: Should I Sell / Lease Land for Cell Tower Use?

Post by ram »

When you sell your 2 acre lots advertise them as :
"with excellent cell phone coverage"
Ram
bob60014
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Re: Should I Sell / Lease Land for Cell Tower Use?

Post by bob60014 »

When I was working in local government, we had tower leases at several of our towns properties. These were usually for 10 years @ $2k-$3k/mo with annual increases of 2-5 percent, depending on location. If they colocated (shared tower with another service) the rent increased. Depending on the location we also asked for site improvements like upgrading the electrical, cable, ability to install our own antennas, etc which were rarely refused. Great deal for us in public safety and ultimately, for the taxpayers.

Attorney definitely needed.
Last edited by bob60014 on Thu Mar 23, 2023 8:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
vested1
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Re: Should I Sell / Lease Land for Cell Tower Use?

Post by vested1 »

Realize that the cell company will need to be granted regular and emergency access to the 1 acre they plan to lease or buy, which means an easement. Prospective buyers will have to put up with this during all hours as well. Will a new road be needed from public property across private property to the cell site, and if so, who will be responsible for establishing and maintaining it?

Most people think that because it's a cell tower, that it means everything is wireless, which is not the case. Even if the site is microwave only, which is highly unlikely due to inefficiency, it still requires commercial power and a backup generator, just like all others. All cell sites utilize fiber now as well, so trenching or pole line construction is needed to get the fiber to the site. All cell sites now have restrooms for the workers, so that means a septic tank in most cases, especially in rural settings. Needless to say, easements across other property will have to be obtained for every utility, and can be negotiated with the land owner when granting them as well.

Most critical are commercial buried gas lines if they exist on the property, which must be located if any trenching is to be done, and coordination with the gas provider during excavation. Gas lines are required to be marked with warning signs, but sometimes they aren't.

What will be the size of the structure needed to house the equipment on ground level? How many cell providers will be on the tower? The OP mentioned Verizon, who are the best for having uniform installations in my opinion, but they can and probably will sub-lease to other carriers for a cost, meaning the employees of those providers will also be using the access.

Maintenance can occur in the middle of the night in an outage, or when cell traffic is light so as not to disrupt peak cell usage when traffic is temporarily transferred. When the commercial power goes out an onsite diesel generator will kick on until power is restored.

What type of tower will it be? How tall will it be?

A self supporting tower is the most common, with a metal skeletal structure distributing the weight evenly to four feet bolted to concrete, with cables and power visible and running up to the transceivers. These towers attract vultures which can leave a mess at the ground level, and create a noxious smell. A monopole tower is a solid tube in which the cables run up the hollow middle to the transceivers. Pigeons like to nest in these towers and can also cause a mess. These sites can have a smaller footprint and the monopole can be disguised to look "like" a large pine tree. Guyed towers are the highest, and take up the largest footprint because, although they are relatively skinny, the down guys needed to make the the tower secure in any weather extend far from the tower in opposite directions.

If I were going to do this as a property owner, I would consider hiring an attorney who was familiar with all the possible gotchas, as well as what would be the most profitable return.
Topic Author
lillycat
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Re: Should I Sell / Lease Land for Cell Tower Use?

Post by lillycat »

Wow, so much to consider. Thank you all. Yes, I can see why an expert’s help might be needed. In the meantime, I was promised an emailed sample lease agreement to review. We will see.
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