| Steel in the Air | Other Consultants | Lease Optimization Companies | Lease Buyout Companies | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free Consultation | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Purpose of Initial Consultation | To determine whether you need services. | To determine whether they can make money off you. | To convince you to renegotiate your lease. | To convince you to sell your lease. |
| Free Unbiased Answers | Yes – for simple questions other than valuation. | Sometimes | Rarely | Sometimes |
| Quote for Services | During initial consultation, clients may opt to select a fee structure that best suits them. | Quotes are given only after clients share their documents. | No | No – you will receive a lease buyout proposal. |
| Fixed Fee Quotes | Yes | Rarely | No | No |
| Contingency Quotes | Yes | Yes – can be up to 30 times the increase in monthly rent. | No | No |
| Double Dipping (working for more than one party). | No. We do not work for wireless carriers or tower companies. | Sometimes – they might take cuts from wireless carriers , tower companies and lease buyout companies. | No | No – you are not their client to begin with. |
| Lease Valuation | Will provide fair-market, unbiased lease valuation. | Final lease valuation will depend upon how they are getting paid. | Leases are usually undervalued initially, resulting in higher commission. | Leases are typically undervalued so they can buy low. |
| Re-sell Lease for Profit | No | Some | Yes | Yes |
| Follow-up Sales Calls | Maybe one or two | Several | Weekly | Weekly |
| Confidentiality of Information | Yes | Not always. | No | Not always. |
We are often contacted by leaseholders who have received buyout offers and are hoping we can help negotiate a better price. In these cases, we explain that selling may not be the best option: some leaseholders actually enjoy receiving regular rent payments (“mailbox money”) and the benefit of a lump-sum payout is negligible; in other cases, the timing isn’t right. In consideration of market dynamics, and leases might be appreciating in value, we might suggest that you renegotiate the terms of your lease instead of selling it. We will discuss all available options with you, and, once you have chosen your course of action, walk you through what the process. Unlike other consultants, we will not push you in one direction (i.e., to sell) simply because it is advantageous to us.
We do these initial calls because our goal is to help you to make an informed decision – starting with whether you should hire us to assist you. Unlike some of our competitors, we won’t immediately start trying to convince you that we can get you more money for selling your lease provided you retain us to find additional offers – unless that is what you want. We don’t use high-pressure techniques, and if you choose not to use our services, we won’t accuse you of wasting our time or belittle you for your choice. We recognize that if you don’t use us now, there is still a chance that you will decide to in the future. Many of our clients first tried a competitor’s service (thinking that because the competitor was a larger company, the service might be better) only to contact us to help sort out the mess after they did not receive the level of professionalism they expected.
Steel in the Air is ethical, transparent and fully committed to providing excellent service. While we do not work for free (or pretend to), if you have a question and we know the answer off the top of our head, we are happy to share the information with you – as a courtesy and at no charge. However, if something requires research or specific positioning, we will propose a fair rate to you and allow you to choose terms of payment. We can also provide you with the information you need to handle the issue yourself – or if you prefer, we will take charge and work on your behalf to negotiate the results you deserve. We will never pigeonhole you into a situation that is best for our bottom line; our services are much too high-quality for a tactic like that.