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Cell Tower Cap Rates

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Actual Market Comps

If you search the net, there are companies that buy the lease income (leased fee estate) from cell tower properties. This includes towers on owned land and leased land

I can tell you the parameters of an actual market sale that I was involved with in the summer of 2008 (closed in late 2008). This sale was for the rights to the tower income (for a period of 25 years) at the American Legion Post of which I currently am Commander (at the time I was 1st Vice Commander).

We had two (2) carriers on our tower (Verizon & T-Mobile), with the ability to add two (2) more. The tower was our massive flag pole, built in 1998 by then GTE Mobilenet.

The monthly income on the tower at the time of sale was just shy of ~$2,200 and the sales price was ~$238,000 (can't locate closely statement right now). This generated a monthly income multiplier (the term used by the investors) of ~108. As I mentioned, the rights to the income and poccession of the hard asset (tower) revert back to the land owner at the end of 25 years.

Some investors (WCP, et cetera) were doing these as non-recourse loans (presented as purchases) at that time. I made sure our docs read that the investor was making a purchase of the identified interests for a period of only 25 years.

During the initial competition stage and following negotiations I talked one of the potential competing investors into supplying a list of deals they closed in my area (with incomes, sales prices and multipliers). The range of multipliers (Sales Price / Monthly Income) ranged from 81 on the low side to 110 on the high side.

Of course market conditions have changed since this sale closed. But I would bet the players are still utilizing similar multiplier data against the monthly income of a cell tower asset.

Since this "cell tower" sale, the Post membership voted to sell the underlying real estate (land and building) to a developer (for a re-development project). Said sale closed in the Spring of 2014, with a lease-back to late this fall for a very low monthly rate.

The Post property is located in a very high-growth (re-development) sector of town (Broad Ripple - very artsy and high end retail). This was an opportunity for the Post to "cash in" on the gains from this property purchased back in 1977.

The Post leadership is active looking for a replacement location (land and building), with hopes of snagging a deal just outside the noted high-end area. Then continued plans to to bank the balance of cash for investment purposes.
 
Typically rooftop antenna leases for large multi-tenant office buildings are just treated like another lease. Usually the income is a very small part of the whole.

We appraised one office building where the owner had already sold the income stream from the rooftop antennas so we just mentioned they were there but generated no income. Couldn't get any details on what it sold for.

If it were a freestanding tower with at least 5-10 year lease term I can't see using less than about a 10% cap rate. A DCF would probably be far more applicable unless the lease term was in excess of 10 years. As others have mentioned, a cell phone tower might be completely worthless after the lease expires. With a typical investment property once the current lease expires you are almost certain to release the property at some point in the future. With a cell phone tower, you may just be left with a cost to demolish it.
 
I've seen a number of cell sites go dark long before their succession of 5yr options ended.
 
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