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Cell Tower Lease Consultants
Cell Tower Lease Consultants – How To Tell Good Ones From Bad Ones In 2026
You may find it surprising for Steel in the Air to admit that other good cell site lease consultants exist. On occasion, we must refer business to other consultants because we are too busy or have a conflict of interest. However, bad consultants exist as well, including some who have been disciplined for unethical behavior. With so many self-proclaimed experts, how can the average landowner tell the difference between them? Here are the 10 factors we believe are important.
| Criterion | ✓ Good Consultant | ✗ Bad Consultant |
|---|---|---|
| Track Record | Long history working exclusively with landowners; knowledge deepens every year | New to the field or resurfaces only when the market slows |
| Honesty & Conflicts of Interest | Works only for landowners; paid only by you — will put it in writing. Does not share your information with buyout companies. | "Double dips" — works for tower companies and landowners simultaneously; may collect referral fees or pocket part of a buyout offer |
| Fee Structure | Charges flat fees — significantly cheaper over the life of your lease | Takes 15–25% of ongoing lease income — on a $1,000/month lease, that can cost you $87,500+ over time |
| Industry Experience | Has built, owned, operated, and brokered towers — knows how the other side thinks | One-dimensional background; no real operating experience in the industry |
| Listens to You | Asks questions, listens first, and will honestly tell you when waiting is your best move | Dominates the conversation; pushes you to sign immediately |
| Client Volume | 4,500+ paying clients — pattern recognition at scale means fewer surprises | A handful of clients; doesn't know what they don't know |
| Real Company & Staff | An actual firm with a tenured team — lease reviewers, data analysts, financial modelers, and client advisors | Often a solo operator with no support staff, limiting capacity and depth |
| References | Hundreds of unsolicited testimonials in clients' own words; will connect you directly with past clients in similar situations | A small number of polished, formulaic reviews that follow similar patterns |
| Data | 17,000+ leases, 3,000+ buyout offers, 350,000 tower data points — the best database in the industry | Limited data; guesses at lease values and carrier activity — and may tell you data doesn't matter |
| Recognized Expertise | Quoted in WSJ, Bloomberg, NYT, and industry trade journals; retained by Fortune 500 companies, federal agencies, and major cities | Self-proclaimed expert with a website; no verifiable third-party citations or credentials |
1. A Good Cell Tower Consultant Has A Long History Of Working With Landowners.
When I started this business over 22 years ago, I thought I knew a lot about lease negotiations and towers. I assumed it would be easy to switch sides and work for landowners by reversing what I did before. Boy, was I wrong. Every year, and even to this day, I learn more about the unique business of consulting with landowners on cell site leases. Every year, we add more data to our industry-leading lease and tower database. The more consultations we do, the less the industry surprises me.
2. A Good Cell Tower Consultant Is Honest and Trustworthy And Doesn't Have A Conflict of Interest
Not all consultants are honest. Not all consultants are in it to help landowners- some only want to help themselves to your money. If you don’t choose to work with us, we don’t send your information to a lease buyout company for a referral fee. We don’t flood the internet with AI-generated news articles designed to make our company look more formidable than we are.
Some of our competitors like to “double dip” – that means they do work for tower companies, lease buyout companies, and landowners. They get paid on both sides of the equation, or even worse, they will get you an offer, but keep part of it for themselves. Some neglect to tell you this. Some make offers to purchase your lease only to flip it for a handsome profit. We consult only with landowners and small tower companies. When you work with us, you can rest assured we only get paid by you. We will even put it in writing.
3. A Good Cell Tower Consultant Doesn't Take a % of Your lease income
Some of our competitors only want you as a client if you pay them an ongoing % of your lease income. They will negotiate your lease for you- but in exchange, they get 15-25% of the lease income going forward. On a $1,000/month lease escalating at 3% annually, that “fee” equates to $87,500 in future rent. By comparison, our flat fees are significantly cheaper for you now and into the future. If you want someone to manage your lease(s) for you now and into the future, we can be retained on a % fee, but at a much more reasonable % than our competitors.
4. A Good Cell Tower Consultant has Broad Experience Across the Industry
We have built, owned, managed, operated, sold, brokered, and consulted on towers. We have negotiated hundreds of leases on behalf of landowners and on behalf of tower companies (prior to forming Steel in the Air).
No other consultant (period) has more experience with all facets of tower operations than we do. We advise small tower developers, infrastructure funds investing in towers, and small tower owners on operating towers. However, we never take on engagements where we have a conflict of interest.
If you want to know what your cell tower lease or tower is worth and why, we have been in the weeds. We know how tower developers and tower companies think- because some seek our guidance.
5. A Good Cell Tower Lease Consultant Listens To You.
It may seem logical for someone you are considering spending money on to listen to you, but it doesn’t always happen. When you talk to our competitors, do they spend most of the time talking? Do they repeatedly tell you why you should hire them and that you are making a mistake if you don’t hire them immediately? Do they immediately offer to buy your lease? Do they come across like “used car salesmen?” Do you feel dirty just talking to them? Do they interrupt you frequently to tell you what they think? When you call us, we will listen to you. We will ask intelligent questions about your situation and let you tell us what you need.
If you aren’t sure, we will share some options. We won’t push you to hire us or badger you to sign up for a contingency agreement. And if you choose not to use our services, we will not sell or share your information with lease buyout companies. If we evaluate your lease and situation and find that we can’t help you or that you will be best served by waiting, we will tell you that. Our business goal is to provide landowners and tower owners with intelligent guidance, even if it doesn’t result in near term revenue. Some people that contact us and to whom we provide free guidance don’t end up retaining us for 5-10 years. That’s just fine by us. We have been and will be in this business for the long haul.
6. The Best Cell Site Lease Consultant Has Assisted Hundreds Of Other Clients In Similar Situations.
The old saying is you can’t know what you don’t know, and 22 years in, we aren’t foolish enough to suggest we know it all. However, we unequivocally know more than our competitors by a wide margin. When you have provided services to 4,500-plus actual paying clients, you learn quickly what you didn’t know before. We aren’t suggesting every situation is the same, but they are similar in most cases. Would you rather go to a doctor who has helped 5 or 10 people in your predicament, or to one who has helped hundreds or thousands of people like you with the same issue?
Even when a situation is unique, we still have far more experience than our nearest competitors – and we know how to handle it.
7. The Good Cell Site Lease Consultant is An Actual Company With Employees
While Ken Schmidt is the president of Steel in the Air, he is surrounded by a team of professionals who have also been with the company for longer than many other consultants have been in business. They each have their own expertise, whether it is reviewing and abstracting leases, maintaining detailed data on each lease, running financial models, or addressing landowner questions and needs. Ken couldn’t do what he does without the support of his great staff, who each share a common desire to help landowners, even if it doesn’t result in revenue to Steel in the Air.
8. The Ideal Consultant Has Hundreds Of Legitimate References.
Read our competitors’ testimonials – do they sound like a real person wrote them? Do they follow similar patterns, or do they look glossy and prepared? Are there just a handful of them? Our testimonials are from real people in their own words. We didn’t solicit or pay our clients to provide them. We didn’t write them for our clients. We didn’t send a film crew to their house to produce the testimonials.
Please ask to talk to our clients directly. We will gladly provide you with phone numbers or email addresses for real people with real situations that are most similar to yours. About 30% of our business is from repeat clients who were thrilled with our services.
9. The Best Cell Tower Lease Consultant Has Data – Lots Of It.
One reason it is hard for landowners to negotiate directly is that the cell tower lease market is “inefficient.” It is inefficient because the tower company or wireless carrier has data from all their leases, while the landowner has data from one or perhaps a handful of leases. No other lease consultant has spent more money or time on aggregating data. Fortunately for landowners who retain us, we have by far the best database in the business, far beyond what the tower companies and wireless carriers have. Our database contains over 17,000 leases, over 3,000 lease buyout offers and sales, 1,700 lease extension offers or amendments, and 350 separate tower portfolio sales. Other consultants who don’t have the same amount of data will try to tell you that data doesn’t matter, experience does. Well, we have both in spades.
We have better data regarding tower location – with 350,000 tower data points and 100,000 cell site location data points. We use this data in every assessment or consultation; therefore, we don’t guess what a lease is worth; we know exactly. We don’t blindly guess where other carriers are in your area. We help make the market more efficient for you.
10. The Best Cell Tower Lease Consultant Is A Recognized Expert In The Field.
Anyone with a website can call themselves an expert. (Ever notice how strikingly similar other websites look to Steel in the Air- that’s no coincidence.) Look around, and you will see no shortage of people advertising that they are experts in the industry. When the industry gets slow, the number of “experts” somehow increases. So how can you verify who is an expert and who is not? Look at their credentials- search for their name on the internet. Here’s what you will find on us:
- Steel in the Air’s president, Ken Schmidt, has been quoted in reputable newspapers like the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and The New York Times on wireless infrastructure-related topics.
- Ken is regularly quoted by industry trade journals like Fierce Wireless, RCR News, Light Reading, Inside Towers, and Wireless Estimator.
- Ken has 19,000 wireless industry connections on LinkedIn who enjoy his regular content about the industry (follow him on LinkedIn).
- Ken has been recognized as an expert in litigation on the topics of lease valuation and tower valuation.
- We have been retained by the largest companies in the world, including Walmart, Disney, CSX, and McDonald’s.
- We have also done work for multiple federal agencies, departments, and services, including the US Army Corps of Engineers, the Veterans Administration, the US Navy, and the US Postal Service.
- We have been retained by many cities, including but not limited to the Cities of Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis, San Diego, and Tampa.
- Ken is sought out by investment banks and industry analysts like Morgan Stanley, Moffett Nathanson, and Wells Fargo to speak to their large investor clients and to provide expert guidance on wireless infrastructure to the investment community. We also provide custom research products on tower locations and lease rates.
- We have been engaged by large infrastructure funds to evaluate potential purchases or investments of large tower portfolios.
- We regularly write helpful thought leadership articles on our blog that give free, valuable advice with no hook, regardless of whether our readers choose to retain us or not: https://www.steelintheair.com/blog/.
If you searched for cell tower lease consultants and found this page, you have probably already talked to our competitors. If not, call them. You have done your homework, and that’s great. Now call us and let us demonstrate that we are a better, honest, professional, and ultimately cheaper option.