For most of my career, I sat on the other side of the table from the property owner. I spent close to twenty years inside the wireless industry, including time as an attorney and leader at American Tower, one of the largest tower companies in the world, and in a leadership role at T-Mobile, one of the carriers that rents space on those towers. Part of my work involved understanding exactly what a cell site was worth to the company and how to secure the rights to it on terms the company was comfortable with. So when I tell landowners that the typical lease buyout offer is built to favor the party making it, I am not speculating. I understand how these offers are put together, because for years I worked on the side of the table that builds them.
And right now, there are a lot of them.
A wave of buyout offers, and why owners should slow down
In 2026, property owners with cell sites are receiving more buyout solicitations than at almost any point I can recall. The major tower companies, including American Tower, Crown Castle, SBA Communications, and Vertical Bridge, have been running active programs to buy the land and the lease income underneath their towers. Crown Castle has been reshaping itself into a pure tower operator and has been candid about wanting to own the ground beneath its sites. American Tower and SBA run their own land and easement buyout programs. These offers arrive on professional letterhead, often with a large dollar figure printed near the top and a sense of urgency printed near the bottom.
The offers are real, they are well funded, and they are skillfully packaged. That is precisely why an owner should pause before responding. A number that looks generous on a single page is not the same thing as a fair number, and the difference is often measured in tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Why a big number can still be a low number
Here is the part most owners never see. The company making the offer is not valuing your lease the way you experience it, as a monthly check in the mailbox. They are valuing it as a long-term, low-risk income stream, much closer to the way Wall Street prices a bond. They run it through a model, apply a discount rate that works in their favor, and arrive at the most they would be willing to pay. Then they offer you a fraction of that, because their job is to acquire the asset for less than it is worth to them.
The owner sees a lump sum that is larger than any single check they have ever received. The buyer sees a discount to fair value. Both things can be true at the same time, and usually are.
Escalators and renewals get left out of the math
Most cell tower leases include annual rent increases, commonly in the range of two to four percent, along with renewal terms that can extend the relationship across decades. A quick buyout offer is frequently priced off your current rent, not off the escalated, renewed, long-horizon income the lease is actually capable of producing. Strip out those escalators and renewals and the number shrinks, which is exactly why a lowball offer tends to leave them out.
The future upside goes to the buyer
A cell site is not a static asset. Carriers add equipment. Towers pick up additional tenants through co-location. Networks densify, and 5G has only accelerated that trend. Each of those events can mean more rent, an amendment payment, or a reset at renewal. When you sell for a single lump sum, all of that future upside transfers to the buyer. They are not paying you for it. They are counting on it.
A single unsolicited offer has no competition behind it
An offer that arrives out of the blue, with no other bidders at the table, rarely reflects what the market would actually pay. I have seen owners assume the first number is the only number. In practice, introducing genuine competition among multiple qualified buyers can move the figure in the owner’s direction, sometimes substantially. The first offer is a starting point that the buyer hopes you will treat as a finish line.
Many buyouts are perpetual easements, not simple sales
A great deal of what gets called a buyout is structured as a perpetual easement. That language matters. A perpetual easement can permanently separate the income from your land, and it can affect the value, the financing, and the future sale of the underlying property in ways that are not obvious when you are looking only at the check. Owners who focus on the dollar amount alone often miss what they are giving up in the structure.
You are negotiating once. They do this every day.
This is the imbalance that concerns me the most. The team sending you that offer closes these transactions for a living. They have the models, the scripts, and the patience, and they have done thousands of them. For the owner, it is usually a once-in-a-lifetime decision made under a self-imposed clock. That is not a level playing field, and the people on the other side of it know that.
What I tell owners to do before they respond
None of this means a buyout is always the wrong move. For some owners, converting a long income stream into cash makes real sense, whether for an estate, a business need, or simple peace of mind. The problem is not that buyouts exist. The problem is accepting one without knowing what you actually hold.
Before responding to any offer, I encourage owners to do a few basic things:
- Read your own lease first. Know your current rent, your escalator, your remaining term, your renewal options, and any clause covering additional tenants or equipment. You cannot value what you do not understand.
- Get an independent valuation. Find out what the lease is worth as an income stream over its full life, not just what one buyer is willing to pay this week.
- Do not let the clock rush you. The deadlines printed on these offers are almost always a negotiating tactic. A genuinely strong offer will still be there next month.
- Create competition. A single offer is rarely the market. More than one qualified buyer at the table changes the entire conversation.
- Have the structure and tax treatment reviewed. A lump sum can carry a significant tax consequence, and the difference between a lease assignment and a perpetual easement is not a small detail. It can be the whole deal.
I spent years helping the companies on the buying side understand what these assets were worth. The owners on the selling side deserve that same information before they sign. A buyout offer is the beginning of a negotiation, not the end of one, and treating it that way is the single biggest thing standing between an owner and the money they might otherwise leave on the table.
