Dental Office Feasibility Study in Louisiana

A mid-sized dental market with a heavy lender

Louisiana ranks 30 of 54 for dental office lending, yet dentistry is the fifth largest of the 39 asset classes in Louisiana itself, and a location quotient of 1.36x shows dentists claim a bigger part of Louisiana lending than of the national total. From FY2017 to FY2026 the cell holds 81 loans and $75.6 million of gross approvals. Their median, $603,000, is 1.19x the national median for the class. Our test finds no single metric here, whether median, cancellation or charge-off, that separates the cell from both the state and the dental book nationally, so the page works best as a reference for a lender or buyer who wants Louisiana's actual record.

Loan sizes and the program split

Half of all approvals sit between $150,000 and $1.4 million. That is a wide band: the low end reflects practice purchases and equipment loans, the high end reflects real estate and build outs. The 7(a) program accounts for 69 loans and the 504 program for 12, and none of the loans is a franchise. At the head of the 7(a) table, Live Oak Banking Company shows 17 loans and $36.1 million, an average well above the cell's median, while JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Association holds 5 loans worth only $1.9 million. In 504, Louisiana Capital Certified Development Company, Inc. has 6 loans and $6.0 million, with Community Certified Development Corporation at 5 loans and $3.5 million.

Where and when

Orleans Parish records 14 loans, East Baton Rouge and Jefferson 11 each, and Caddo 8, so the evidence spreads across several parishes rather than one. Volume was highest in FY2017 at 15 loans and $6.2 million, dipped to 3 loans in FY2022, and rebuilt to 9 loans in FY2025, with FY2026 carrying $11.6 million across 7.

Cancellations and losses

Across the FY2017 to FY2024 vintages, Louisiana dental files were pulled after approval at a rate no lower than 7.7%, and treating every undisbursed loan as cancelled still gives 7.7%. Charge-off history rests on 47 funded loans, none charged off yet, which prints as 0.00%, with the same 0.00% on the five-year measure. Because open loans can still fail, a lender should treat these as minimums, but the record is clean so far.

What the study has to test

A Louisiana dental feasibility study should begin with patient demand in the specific parish: insured population, existing practices, and whether the project is a start up, an acquisition or a build. Costs deserve scrutiny because operatories, imaging and cabinetry vary widely, and a project near the median must be reconciled with what the equipment list actually costs. Debt service coverage should reflect a ramp in production per chair, not a steady state from the first month. The appraiser will value the practice on cash flow and the real estate separately, so the study needs to keep goodwill and property apart, and show a downside case with slower patient growth.