Dental Office Feasibility Study in Wisconsin

Wisconsin dental loans: large, and 504-heavy

A Wisconsin dental loan outsizes the typical one nationally. The median Wisconsin dental loan was $608,500, 1.20x the dental median nationwide, and it departs, beyond our distinctness margin, from Wisconsin lending in every class as well as from dentistry nationally, so the median leads this page. Dentistry is a smaller share of Wisconsin's SBA activity than of the national book: the location quotient is 0.73x, the class ranks 12 of 39 inside Wisconsin, and the state ranks 21 of 54. Approvals totalled 126 for $117.4 million over FY2017 to FY2026. The middle half runs from $268,675 to $1.1 million.

Wisconsin dentists make heavy use of SBA 504: it carried 36 of the approvals against 90 under SBA 7(a), a sign that many practices buy their own building. WBD, Inc. holds 34 of those 504 loans, worth $28.3 million, so a Wisconsin dentist buying real estate will very likely meet that development company. The 7(a) side mixes a local bank with national practice lenders: The Bank of Kaukauna holds 11 loans worth $4.0 million, Live Oak Banking Company 10 worth $17.8 million, Wells Fargo Bank National Association 10, The Huntington National Bank 8 worth $12.5 million and U.S. Bank, National Association 7. Franchising does not appear, at 0.00%. Milwaukee County leads with 17 approvals, but Outagamie, with 15, nearly matches it, ahead of Waukesha with 10 and La Crosse with 9. FY2021 brought 28 loans, and FY2022 the most dollars, $21.5 million.

No losses on record in Wisconsin

Cancellations reached at least 11.6% of its FY2017 to FY2024 dental approvals, with the ceiling also at 11.6%. Charge-offs are absent: across the 73 Wisconsin dental loans disbursed in FY2017 to FY2021, the share lost is 0.00%, and 0.00% for the early years too. These are floors, and a clean record for existing Wisconsin practices is no guarantee for a new project.

What a Wisconsin dental study must test

For a Wisconsin practice, demand testing means the population per dentist, payer mix and patient growth in the trade area, read separately for markets as different as Milwaukee, Outagamie and Eau Claire counties. An acquisition study has to confirm that the selling dentist's patients and collections stay with the Wisconsin practice after the sale. Cost testing covers equipment, build-out and, for a 504 deal, the building. Coverage of Wisconsin debt service should rest on realistic production per chair, and a loan near $1.1 million should be stress-tested well beyond the $608,500 median. The appraisal is central to the 504 projects: the building must carry its share of the loan on real estate value, separate from the practice's goodwill.