Did you know that while you might not be sitting on a gold mine, there might be one right over your head? If you’re a commercial property owner, rental property manager or real estate developer, you may be able to earn additional revenue by contracting with wireless carriers to install 5G transmitters on your rooftops.
Looking to the Future
Fifth-generation (5G) wireless technology is the next phase of cellular telecommunications and is being rolled out worldwide. It’s become a top priority for deployment for North American cellular carriers, because 5G can handle over 100 times the data compared to 4G.
However, unlike 3G and 4G, 5G requires transmitters about every five city blocks due to its higher frequency and shorter wavelength. As a result, carriers have been scrambling to find commercial real estate locations to deploy the network as fast as possible. Leases generally range from $2,000 to $20,000 each, and terms can extend for five to 20 years. The best opportunities include rooftops, which work well in dense, populated areas where zoning doesn’t permit towers. And there are more than one million cellular sites in the U.S.
To prepare for 5G wireless technology, property owners need to plan for future expectations from tenants. This upgraded, faster network will become the standard, simultaneously raising the demand for technology services to handle the massive business overhaul. Property owners can expect a multitude of added value, including: quality wireless improvement, increased building cybersecurity, higher rents and lower operating costs based on added efficiencies.
Data from Pew Research Center shows 96% of American adults own a cellphone, and 81% own a smartphone. Last year alone, over six million Americans “cut the cord” with paid television, according to eMarketer, creating a larger potential revenue for property owners with 5G expansion on the horizon. Faster and more efficient 5G will be increasingly important for not only business investors, but also private real estate owners to increase their performance capabilities.
Making Your Rooftop Work
Landlords will have the advantage of leasing rooftop space, particularly in larger cities, which have been severely set back by the pandemic and are struggling on several fronts, such as dwindling tenant numbers, new regulations and late payments. For these investors, the rollout of 5G presents a kind of stimulus that couldn’t be timelier. If optimally managed, these leases can provide a low-maintenance, essentially passive income source for decades.
A savvy technology partner like Engineered Tax Services (ETS) can help. ETS has established relationships with strategic partners to build out 5G networks and provide an end-to-end solution for all carriers nationally. We’ll analyze your building(s) to initially see if they’re suitable for 5G technologies and assess, according to location, if your property is an optimal candidate for consideration.
The Process
Once an agreement is signed, you’ll learn if your property is viable within 10 business days. We then contact carriers for immediate interest. If there is none, we keep your property in our system so carriers can recognize you as an ongoing site location opportunity. We negotiate Carrier Lease deals on your behalf to maximize cash flow and the most advantageous terms and present the lease to you for approval. ETS will then manage the permitting, construction and execution for rooftop equipment and manage the cash flow monthly in a trust account and distribute it within 14 days of receipt from carriers. Your property will continually be marketed to additional carriers as well as up-selling carriers for additional rooftop equipment leases.
Choose the Right Partner
A good 5G partner ensures that you come out on the winning end of the deal. For example, at ETS, we don’t earn anything until you do. Our fee covers everything: property profile, analysis, permitting, tower construction, utilities, taxes, carrier relations, contract negotiation, carrier upselling, cash flow management and representing you, as the client. You pay nothing until a lease is secured and the first month rent collected. In addition, you get our continued support.
As a result of the pandemic, commercial real estate is under considerable financial pressure. Could your rooftop be a cash cow?
Heidi Henderson
Engineered Tax Services
hhenderson@engineeredtaxservices.com
800-236-6519
