[magneticnorth]

We rent a corner of our lot to T-Mobile for a cell phone tower - it pays about $1200 a month.

So far it seems like a great deal to us - the maintenance people are super stealthy and never bother us, and the previous homeowner built a very nice-looking fence around the equipment that matches the house and makes it easy to just not notice that anything is there. The tower itself is on a telephone/power pole for lines that run alongside the property anyway, so that's also not an eyesore.

We bought the house with the tower & lease already in place, so unfortunately I've got no idea how they set this up; I'd definitely do it again in a future home if I could.

[jryb]

FWIW, I used to process contracts for such leases in 2010 and that’s a pretty low payment. Typically these things paid $2-4k/month (not inflation adjusted). That said, these were all in suburban or urban areas, and if it’s easy enough to move it to your neighbor’s pole you might not have much negotiating power, but you might be able to get more from them if the lease expires while you still own the house.

[laksmanv]

How does one start something like this, or is it a matter of luck of having land that the cell phone company reaches out to you wanting to put a tower on?

[kyshoc]

Out of curiosity, how long is the term on the lease?

[magneticnorth]

The current lease is for 10 years, but that was renegotiated from a prior lease that I'm not sure what the terms were.