The property owner is likely to ask where on the property you want to put this facility site. Suggest a location or locations you have in mind but indicate some flexibility. Advise that it’s preferable to be near power, telephone service, fiber optics, and a public right-of-way for easy access. A tour of the property will help determine the best locations for the facility.
Rural Search Areas
For rural search areas, I don’t usually inquire about more than the few most desirable properties at one time. If too many local property owners get a call, locals may get the idea you’re shopping the opportunity and not take it seriously. If not enough response or interest is received to find three solid candidate locations to complete the SAR, as discussed in Module 13 Search Area Report (SAR) I’ll work down the list of desirable properties until enough solid candidates exist to complete a report respectably.
Marketing
It is not always a routine matter to locate and contact property owners, as discussed in Module 11 Lease-ability. Many properties are held obscurely in entity names that get real estate tax bills at a post office box, a law firm, or an organization with a different name. Rural property owners in northern states may be living in southern states during the winter. A growing number of Americans replace their landlines every year with cell phones. Phone directories and operator assistance don’t list cell phone numbers, email addresses, or websites. Residential phone lines that are still in service may be unpublished or strictly used as a digital service line (DSL) for internet access or for a fax machine. A fax message can be sent to a fax machine and some internet sources may help to locate a property owner. Nevertheless, the ability to quickly and easily reach many property owners by telephone or a personal visit strictly based on information available in the county real estate records is lacking. A direct mail marketing approach might be helpful to establish contact with hard-to-find property owners.
Making Offers
Collocation rates on existing structures cost more than space agreements for vacant ground on which to build a new structure because the structure is already built. The client will provide guidance about acceptable rental rates and collocation fees. MLAs may specify rates as well. If the opportunity exists to negotiate collocations, bargain hard on behalf of your client. Most often structure owners will establish the rental rate they want.
The site acquisition agent needs to be aware of what the site developer will and won’t pay for location rent. Before you make a verbal offer to a property owner, know that your client will back that offer. Keep your offers conservative so you know the client will agree. However, problems may arise if the initial offers made for prospective sites are so low that property owners don’t respect the opportunity. Price offers for desirability but not exorbitance.
The best policy is to identify a price to propose that is as low as possible without being too low to be of interest to property owners. Stick with that price unless it just doesn’t work. The prices site developers are willing to pay are usually reasonable considering that cell sites don’t require massive space.
Non-Negotiables
Since extended conversations may take place in the early stages of property owner communications, it is beneficial to be acquainted with space rights terms often considered non-negotiable by wireless facility developers. This is not necessarily to say that no wireless site developer will negotiate language details, but certain clauses have substantial legal meaning. Wireless infrastructure operators are not likely to accept revisions to non-negotiable terms that jeopardize the legal position they deemed necessary.
Demonstrate Neighborhood Insight in Property Owner Communications
A property owner may mention landmarks in a community—or in rural areas they may refer to their property by the section number—to verify you are referring to the same land they own. Often property owners originally might think that you are only interested in one precise location. It’s helpful to explain that you’ve been provided a search area and explain the size of it. Especially if they’re interested in the opportunity, the property owner may immediately feel like you’re in the neighborhood just to be on their land.
Site Search Short List
Particularly if your conversations with the property owner go well and you develop good rapport, in this early stage be sure they know how many candidates the client requires you to evaluate and that you don’t make the final decision. Property owners don’t want to feel like they’re spending time on a possibility that is small, that is, that the number of sites being considered is so large that their odds of being selected are slight. It might be important to assure a prospective property owner that only a select few sites are being considered.
Ongoing Site Search Due Diligence
Once a site is selected, the agent no longer focuses on looking for other sites. Instead, the consultant’s focus shifts to developing the chosen site. The diligent consultant will, however, continue to keep and collect information and take calls about properties other than the one chosen. It’s best to advise the owners of sites not chosen that if a selected site falls through for any reason, the client will reconsider the other candidates. Additional candidates may become available (that weren’t previously considered) or additional information could become known that changes the perceived feasibility of any candidate, including the candidate first chosen.
Site Selection
In the next training level of this curriculum, we’ll discuss the site selection process. Site selection results from an evaluation of alternatives by members of the project team, most notably the project RF engineer and construction manager. Before we go into the reports that precede and result from site selection, I’d like to talk about the site acquisition consultant’s communications with the property owner whose property has just been selected for development.
After site selection, the property owner needs to be contacted to be made aware of the decision. This is an important time to confirm that the property owner is still interested in the opportunity at the discussed terms, especially monetarily. Until this point property owners could not be sure their location would be selected. It might not have been more than a few weeks since your initial conversation.
