All Forum Posts by: Greg Scharlemann

@Sean Lee - I've been investing for 10+ years - residential and commercial. Happy to help out with questions and UW as you get into it. Good luck!

@Sean Lee - I’m in the Bay Area as well. Focused mostly on the commercial - office/industrial/etc. Look forward to connecting.

@Jazmine Bryant if you have a license you can refer them to a commercial broker and get a percentage of the fee if they do a deal. I've seen around 20-25% of the fee received for the referral.

@Greg Dickerson great tips. Thanks for sharing!

@Dean B. Awesome! Thanks for the update. Keep us posted on how things progress.

@Pietro Serra: @Greg Dickerson is correct. It's market , product type and class dependent. A broker can help. Larger broker houses put out quarterly market reports that aggregate data across submarkets, asset types and class. That will give you a general idea.

@Sam Schrimsher it occurred to me you may want to know a few companies that buy the cell tower leases. Here are a few. I'm sure there are others.

Landmark dividend

Crown castle

Blackdot

Good luck!

@Sam Schrimsher the guys that by the revenue stream from the cell lease will offer a lump sum. As an example, let's say the cell tower pays $1,000/month or $12k/year and there's some term remaining on the lease. They will offer a buy out of the lease of say $200k (12,000/.06; e.g. 6 cap). They pay you 200k today and get whatever revenue the existing lease and renewals generate for the next 50 years. They also take a risk that the tower doesn't shutdown or not renew. It's kind of like a ground lease.

Cell tower owners have caught onto this and added language to their leases to give them the right to buy first or restrict deals like this. So check the lease to be sure there's no limiting language. There's also more value in 3% annual escalations vs 2% and cell towers have really been pushing for lower escalations.

If this is something you're considering engage a lawyer to help you lock it up with an option to purchase. Once under contract you can negotiate a sale of the cell tower income. Just know that any financing you may get will want a portion of whatever payment you get or will change how they underwrite the financing of the purchase.

@Sam Schrimsher There is an entire industry out there that does this. They offer 50+ year leases to buy the rights to the cell tower leases/cashflow and any additional leases they can do (I've seen this on roofs of commercial buildings and have to imagine it happens on land plays as well). In the Bay area they offer pricing based on a 6-6.5 cap rate and they are taking all of the risk. Meaning if the tower is Sprint tower and they merge with T-Mobile and shutdown that tower they still pay the landowner. Doesn't mean you can't do this just know the competition is out there.

Anybody?