SBA 7(a) Dental Office Feasibility Study in Colorado

Colorado dentists: big loans, few cancellations

Two metrics set Colorado's dental office cell apart. The first is the median loan, $892,000, which is 1.81x what dental offices borrow at the median across the country under the program. The second is the cancellation floor of 5.8% for FY2017 to FY2024 approvals, unchanged when undisbursed loans are counted: very few approved dental loans fell away. The file holds 256 loans worth $332.2 million, with a central half running from $352,025 to $2.0 million. Colorado ranks sixth among states by count and among Colorado's 39 classes dental offices hold seventh. Franchising is rare at 1.6%.

Why the loans are so large

A median near $892,000 suggests the loans often finance more than chairs and imaging: acquisitions of established practices, owner-occupied buildings and multi-doctor offices. A lender reading a Colorado dental request should ask which of those the money buys, because the answer changes the collateral and the valuation method. A borrower asking toward $2.0 million should show the revenue of the practice being bought, and not merely a plan to build one.

Live Oak at the centre

Live Oak Banking Company holds 96 of the loans, worth $192.6 million, a very large share. Wells Fargo Bank National Association has 31 loans and $28.1 million, The Huntington National Bank 15 and $20.4 million, BMO Bank National Association (13, $8.0 million) and U.S. Bank, National Association 7 and $7.2 million. The columns show who holds the paper and carry no view of any lender's terms.

Counties and years

Arapahoe has 36 loans, Jefferson 32, Denver 30, Boulder 26, El Paso 24 and Larimer 22, then Weld with 19, Douglas with 16, Mesa with 12 and Adams with 11. Approvals ran from 36 in FY2017 to 17 in FY2020, jumped back to 36 in FY2021 and reached 31 in FY2025.

Charge-offs

Colorado's disbursed cohort for FY2017 to FY2021 holds 130 loans, and it shows 1.5% charged off to date and 0.77% gone within five years. Those are floors, and low ones.

What a Colorado dental study has to test

Compare the practice's expected collections per operatory with realistic patient flow, count competing offices within the trade area, and test the share of patients on insurance plans with discounted fee schedules. For an acquisition, it needs the seller's production history and a plan to keep patients through the transition. Price plumbing, imaging and sterilisation against the $892,000 median. Hygienist and assistant staffing is a constraint. Repayment should hold with collections under the seller's last year, and an appraiser will split the real estate from the practice's goodwill.