Dental Office Feasibility Study in the San Juan-Bayamón-Caguas, PR Metro Area

A small-ticket class with real local weight

Dental offices carry unusual weight in the San Juan-Bayamón-Caguas lending record. From FY2017 to FY2026 SBA approved 77 loans here for dental practices, worth $11.6 million in gross dollars, a volume that lifts the area to 25 of 562 when every metro and micro area is lined up by dental loans. Dentistry places 4 of 39 when the area ranks its own classes. The location quotient of 1.70x says dentistry takes a noticeably larger share of local SBA loans than it does of the national book. The feature that distinguishes the cell from the area and the nation alike is size: the median loan is $100,000, only 0.20x the national median for dental offices, so the typical loan here finances a fraction of what a practice loan elsewhere does.

Who borrows how much, and from whom

Half of the dental loans fall between $25,000 and $231,300, a band that points toward equipment, fit-out and practice acquisition more than toward ground-up buildings. SBA 7(a) accounts for 70 of the loans and SBA 504 for 7. None is flagged as a franchise, a share of 0.00%, which fits a class built on independent practices. On SBA's current-holder list for 7(a), Banco Popular de Puerto Rico heads the table with 39 loans worth $3.5 million; those are SBA's records of loans that lender holds or held, and say nothing about how it underwrites. By municipio, San Juan leads with 20 loans, then Guaynabo with 10, Bayamón with 7, Caguas and Humacao with 6 each and Vega Alta with 5.

Approvals ran at 7 loans in each of FY2019, FY2020 and FY2023, worth $1.1 million, $1.4 million and $1.4 million. Every other year rests on too few loans to publish, so no figure appears for them, and a missing year is not a year without lending. Cancellation and charge-off percentages are left off altogether, for the same reason: the cohort is too small for a rate that means anything, and none should be inferred. Rates shown elsewhere on this site are minimums, because loans still open could yet be cancelled or charged off. The area is defined by county: SBA files each loan under its project county, we match that county to the July 2023 area map, and any loan whose county has no home there appears in no area at all.

Testing a San Juan dental office

Anyone planning a dental office here should begin from the local sizing evidence rather than a regional average. A median of $100,000 means many borrowers here fund modest projects, so a request well above the middle half needs a reason the market data can back. The study has to test patient demand inside the site's catchment, the practice's production against its overhead, what build-out and equipment will cost, and whether projected cash flow covers debt service with room to spare. Lenders reading the study will set it beside an appraisal of the practice or premises, and the revenue assumptions have to survive that comparison. Nothing here promises approval; the page shows what SBA recorded, and the study shows whether a given project belongs in that record.