Ask Fancy Anything(within reason)...

[deleted738762]

That's all I need to bring to get in on your awesome business? Sign me up!

Exceptional dental skills was implied as well.

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[deleted446889]

Medium sized towns and small cities in upper Midwest for sure. High labor force participation rates, people care more about their teeth more so than in the South or Appalachia (generally speaking, not trying to make an all or none argument), infinitesimally low cost of living, etc. You'll be cold if you're not from a winter climate, but it's worth it, in my opinion. Some worth considering:

South Dakota

• Brookings or Vermillion- both college towns
• Rapid City-Spearfish area
• Pierre- capital and low poverty rate
• Yankton
• Mitchell
• Aberdeen

Iowa

• Dubuque
• Cedar Falls
• Waterloo
• Ames- college town
• Sioux City

These are all bigger towns (like 30,00-60,000ish), but will definitely not be saturated because you'll be drawing in patients from rural areas who go to these towns for all their services as it is


Nebraska

• Norfolk
• Scottsbluff
• Kearney
• Lincoln- a little bigger but not as big of a metro area as Omaha
• Grand Island

These are all mid-sized and saturation won't be an issue whatsoever, with patients flooding in from rural areas

Wisconsin (my favorite)

• Eau Claire
• Oshkosh
• La Crosse
• Sheboygan

All these are mid-sized and out there so saturation won't be an issue. Madison is really nice, and saturation could be possible but it may be worth it due to how good of a place to live it is. You could always live there and commute out to somewhere more rural.

North Dakota has very low unemployment rates right now but with the boom and bust nature of the oil industry and uncertainty of drilling in the Bakken Shale, I'd shy away from North Dakota in general just because its economy is a wild-card. Look at what happened to West Virginia when coal declined; you don't want to be living and practicing in North Dakota when the same thing happens there.

Great post! You seem to really know your stuff. What about on the East Coast? My entire family is in either NY or FL, so I'd like to be somewhere on the East Coast. I love having 4 seasons, so I'd much rather stay closer to NY. What do you know about northeastern states? I've gotta assume that even in big-time states like NY or FL, there must be rural areas if you're willing to commute.

 

[ZedsDed]

The one time I lurk on pre-dent I find you guys worshipping at the altar of Queen Fancy

 

[Scumbag_Steve]

.

 

[fancymylotus]

The one time I lurk on pre-dent I find you guys worshipping at the altar of Queen Fancy

Duh


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[deleted446889]

I know more about the Northeast than anywhere else but I'm out of town. I'll give you a better response soon!

Cool, looking forward to it. Thanks!

 

[neutron1]

Did being in debt by X amount (Whatever your debt was after school) ever phase you psychologically? Were you ever worried or stressed out that you would not be able to pay it? It feels like if most dentists make a stable salary, all it really takes is the time to keep making the small payments of Y amounts of money towards the debt, rather than worrying about the money itself. Was a large part of your income being applied to paying off debt? Or did you have at least some amount of money to be spent on stuff such as a car, clothes, gifts for birthdays etc

 

[fancymylotus]

Did being in debt by X amount (Whatever your debt was after school) ever phase you psychologically? Were you ever worried or stressed out that you would not be able to pay it? It feels like if most dentists make a stable salary, all it really takes is the time to keep making the small payments of Y amounts of money towards the debt, rather than worrying about the money itself. Was a large part of your income being applied to paying off debt? Or did you have at least some amount of money to be spent on stuff such as a car, clothes, gifts for birthdays etc

Budgeting yourself and sticking to that budget is important regardless of what type of debt and how much of it you have. Don't carry huge credit card balances, make sure you max out your retirement accounts each year and maintain an emergency fund, and then the rest is extremely doable


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[JakeSill]

How do private practice owners get taxed?

 

[fancymylotus]

How do private practice owners get taxed?

I'm not sure what you mean so I'll answer what I think you're asking

You pay income tax on the money you take as salary

You pay taxes on the actual property that your office is in/on if you own it

The business pays taxes

Any leftover money at the end of the year over and above what you take as income also gets taxed

So it's better to invest that back into the business or into something else like real estate


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[fancymylotus]

Oh yes. Payroll tax too, but that gets automatically taken from you for each pay period


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[Weakfart]

I'm not sure what you mean so I'll answer what I think you're asking

You pay income tax on the money you take as salary

You pay taxes on the actual property that your office is in/on if you own it

The business pays taxes

Any leftover money at the end of the year over and above what you take as income also gets taxed

So it's better to invest that back into the business or into something else like real estate


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Can I opt in to a gladiatorial fight against an IRS representative instead?

 

[fancymylotus]

Can I opt in to a gladiatorial fight against an IRS representative instead?

Oh I'd love to do that. The disgusting amounts of abuse of the system you see in clinic in dental school, residency, and even in private practice depending on where you work, will make you as jaded and grouchy as I am now.


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[Scumbag_Steve]

.

 

[tooth knockn]

Maryland- I don't know if you consider Maryland the northeast, but suburban DC has some very wealthy places (think Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Potomac and the like) where patients will abound. However, due to astronomically high cost of living (imagine paying $600,000 for a 2bdr condo just to get your kids into a good school district) and relative saturation of practitioners I would avoid suburban the suburban DC like it has an STD. I don't know if the Baltimore suburbs are less saturated (I would venture to guess they are), but I know they are at least slightly to moderately more affordable. Lutherville-Timonium, Ellicot City, Towson, Cantonsville, come to mind for good suburbs. I would stay away from Hagerstown and areas west (Frostburg, Cumberland and the like) because they're a bit poorer. I don't know much about the Eastern Shore or more rural areas, but I bet the hidden gems with low cost of living and high income potential are hidden away from Baltimore/DC suburbs.

Pennsylvania- Google "the T" and "Pennsyltucky". While I'm sure central PA has hidden gems, it's by and large a **** hole. I've spend more time than any human being should have to on I-80 and I-81 going all over the state, and I can tell you that I would not live anywhere besides suburban Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, and that's saying something if you knew who I am. I heard Erie has some decent parts, but I'm just trying to simplify things. I would rank Pittsburgh over Philadelphia as a city. I really, really like Pittsburgh. It's affordable, young, has lots to do, and most importantly it is affordable. Fox Chapel, Marshall Township, Upper St. Clair Township come to mind for nice suburbs. Philadelphia is much bigger, and has a lot of very nice but more expensive suburbs (Montgomery, Chester, Delaware counties are all chock full o' them). There are definitely a lot of dentists practicing there, but you can still carve out a living for sure. Good like dealing with Philly sports fans, however. These suburbs extend into Delaware, which provides me with a nice transition.

Delaware- northern Delaware is pretty much suburban Philadelphia with a better tax climate. You could do really well here. I don't know too much about individual towns or the rest of the state. Rehoboth Beach is beautiful but that's a vacation spot, not a place to practice.

New Jersey- DISCLAIMER: I ****ing hate New Jersey and don't suggest for a second for you to move there. It is a bastion of human vice, ill-behavior, industrial pollution, terrible drivers, stuck up rich suburbanites who infiltrate out of state universities because they can afford out of state tuition, and New York and Philadelphia sports fans. If you are able to find even one reason on God's green earth to move there, I will unequivocally recommend Sussex County as its hidden gem. You still have New York close-by, but you're free of the wanton greed and materialism, preposterous costs of living, and most importantly saturation that dominates metro NYC (northern NJ, NY, parts of Fairfield County, CT). Sussex County will be cheaper, less saturated, and much more pleasant of a place to live. South Jersey has some nice suburbs of Philadelphia that would make for a nice place to live and an alternative to metro NY. I'm not familiar enough with New Jersey to pick out hidden unsaturated gems but my advice would be to seek the outermost suburbs to get cheaper housing and less saturation. The beaches are beautiful the further south you go, but I'm not sure how it would be to practice on the coast.

New York- too large and diverse of a state in terms of practice climates and different regions for me to accurately describe. Westchester County and Long Island should be avoided not only due to somewhat saturation, but INSANE cost of living, traffic, etc. If you want to pay $1.2mil for a 3 bdr ranch on 0.2 acres in a good school system, be my guest. I'm not willing to do that, especially if my neighbors have New York accents and support the Yankees. Once you get further away from New York, there are nice suburbs of Buffalo/Rochester/Syracuse/Albany, I just am not terribly familiar with them. The Finger Lakes region is gorgeous, and there's actually a lot of rural farmland upstate, but upstate has some poorer places too (Schenectady, Poughkeepsie, Utica etc. Talk to native New Yorkers on this one, they'll be far more knowledgeable than I am.

Connecticut- I'm biased, but other than the most expensive parts of Fairfield County, almost everywhere is a good place to live or practice, with a few exceptions. Litchfield County is beautiful, rural, and classic New England. I would suggest living here and then traveling to work in Hartford's outer suburbs (Burlington, Simsbury, Canton) if you like gorgeous, quiet areas and money. Those three suburbs, along with Farmington, Avon, Granby, and West Hartford, are all affluent and with great patient bases and school systems. They all vary in accessibility to Hartford, cost, and character/feel. This takes care of Hartford's suburbs west of the river, South Windsor, Tolland, and Glastonbury are Hartford's nicest suburbs east of the river. These also provide more access to Storrs, in case you have a spouse working at UConn or just want to live/practice closer to that area. Once you get past Storrs into the quiet corner, it gets to be a little more poor and rural, but gorgeous nonetheless. It's like a poor man's Litchfield County. Living in Pomfret or Ashford and commuting into Storrs or Tolland would be a little bit of a drive but if you like peace and quiet and lots of land this could be a good option for you. Same goes for Bolton, Hebron, Marlborough etc if you wanted to be closer to Hartford and Glastonbury as well as Storrs. They're nice towns as well, and quiet but less isolated. If you want more coastline, Madison, Clinton and Guilford are nice towns commuting distance to New Haven and New London if you're willing to drive a little bit. Killingworth, Haddam, Lyme, Old Lyme, Deep River, Chester, Essex, Westbrook and Old Saybrook all fit this bill to varying degrees of waterfront, cost, character, feel, and relative proximity to the New Haven/ New London areas. Cheshire and Hamden nicer, more densely populated but still affluent places to live and practice if you're trying to stay more tethered to New Haven area and value shorter commutes and bigger neighborhood feel. Southbury, Ridgefield, Redding, New Milford, Newtown, Brookfield, and Bethel are all pretty nice and commuting distance to more wealthy parts of Fairfield County, and get you affordability and good schools without the price tag of some of the more heavyweight New York suburbs.

I can give pretty much limitless advice on CT if you're interested; it's what I know best. I can talk about it all day if you'd like.

Massachusetts- Boston and its suburbs are absolutely fantastic places to live but they are a little saturated and prohibitively expensive. Outer suburbs to the south, like as far down as Mansfield/Sharon area, will be more affordable and still great places to live. Same with further north like Andover/Acton/Bedford/Topsfield and the like. If you have a high income spouse or a spouse who wants a shorter commute, closer suburbs are still great places to practice, it's just really steep for housing in good school districts. Suburbs of Worcester, like Holden and Shrewbury, offer great bang for your buck in my opinion. By no means are they the only ones, but housing is cheaper and schools are still good once you go that way. I don't think the Cape would be a good place to practice based on seasonal residence and reliance upon tourism. Much of Central Mass is poorer and rural, and urban poor in Springfield, Chicopee, and Holyoke, but there are some better suburbs in the region like Wilbraham and East Longmeadow. Amherst is pretty cool too. Western Mass can be pretty rural and some places are poor, but Great Barrington, Lenox, and especially Williamstown are phenomenally beatituful and unsaturated enough to provide an awesome place to live and practice. Scenery abounds, but you're much further from Boston and the Cape. Worth it if you like land and peace and quiet, in my opinion. If I had to pick one place to live in the state it would be Williamstown hands down.

Rhode Island- the state is so geographically small that anywhere of consequence is commuting distance to anywhere else of consequence. East Greenwich, Narragansett, South Kingstown, and Barrington are pretty nice. There are some poorer regions, mainly inner city Providence, Central Falls, Woonsocket, and the interior rural areas, but they're easy to avoid. The beaches in Rhode Island are gorgeous, and Newport is a cool place for a day trip, so you can easily find a nice commute to everything. Not a complicated place to figure out, but it is the least affluent state overall in New England.

Vermont- sparesly populated for the most part and intensely beautiful, it's a great place to live. Burlington is more expensive than the rest of the state but still reasonable by comparison to a lot of places around the country. It has some nice suburbs too, both east of Burlington and those on Lake Champlain. The rest of the state has a much quieter and more rural feel, but still some great places to live and practice. Manchester, Shaftsbury, Bennington, and Montpelier come to mind. Rutland and St. Johnsbury have drug epidemics, as well as other rural, economically depressed towns. I should take a moment to pause and say this is ubiquitous across New England. Willimantic, CT is even worse. Rural areas have been hit hard by heroin in rural northern New Hampshire and Maine, as well as the rest of New England. New Bedford, Gloucester, Webster, and Fall River, MA share a similar feel. Same with Woonsocket, RI. This can easily be avoided but it's very sad and not a lot of people realize the extent to which idyllic New England isn't as picture perfect as others make it out to be. Also, our wealth inequality is quite sad, and makes for some dangerous cities. Still the best region of the country despite the heroin and wealth inequality issues. So back to Vermont; there are great places around the state to live and practice, and if you like hiking/skiing/hunting it's a great place for weekend activities.

Maine- it is expansive and beautiful, but most of the population is in and around Portland. Portland, Lewiston, Augusta, Bangor, Falmouth, Biddeford, Saco, Sanford etc are places where it's not too saturated and there's a population to support a practice. Now the rest of Maine is quite beautiful, but towns are more polarized with the middle class tourism industry folks and rich tourists and their second homes. There are picturesque beach towns to live in and commute into more populated towns, but it's prob best to practice in the population centers. Non-coastal Maine is rugged, beautiful, and quiet, but largely empty. Northern Maine has a lot of Francophones and a different culture, but it's a hell of a drive to get up there and it's poorer so unless you have strong French Canadian roots I wouldn't move up there. Also, beware of mosquitoes in inland Maine. Mother****ers are enormous...

This brings me to where, in my opinion, is the best place in the United States outside of Texas to practice dentistry.

New Hampshire- there are no state income or sales taxes in the state. If you don't own a big plot of land or buy a house that's too big and fancy (property taxes are the bulk of the tax liability for the state's residents), you will make a very, very good living. The Nashua/Manchester area in the southern part of the state has a lot of upper-middle income families with teeth that need a dentist. There are plenty of suburbs for you to live in and practice, and you are closer to Boston than you'd think. You're also close to the White Mountains for hiking, and all of New England's beaches are within a short drive. Not only will you avoid saturation, you'll keep more of what you earn than you otherwise would living most other places. Northern New Hampshire is a little poorer and more rural, but if you stick to the Manchester/Nashua area you will do quite well and be able to send your kids to good school districts.

Let me know if you need anything else.

WHOA

look at you

nice info, good to know

 

[fancymylotus]

Westchester is wonderful. I have insane real estate envy of Fairfield County. I can't exactly afford Greenwich. Yet


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[schmoob]

Maryland- I don't know if you consider Maryland the northeast, but suburban DC has some very wealthy places (think Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Potomac and the like) where patients will abound. However, due to astronomically high cost of living (imagine paying $600,000 for a 2bdr condo just to get your kids into a good school district) and relative saturation of practitioners I would avoid suburban the suburban DC like it has an STD. I don't know if the Baltimore suburbs are less saturated (I would venture to guess they are), but I know they are at least slightly to moderately more affordable. Lutherville-Timonium, Ellicot City, Towson, Cantonsville, come to mind for good suburbs. I would stay away from Hagerstown and areas west (Frostburg, Cumberland and the like) because they're a bit poorer. I don't know much about the Eastern Shore or more rural areas, but I bet the hidden gems with low cost of living and high income potential are hidden away from Baltimore/DC suburbs.

Pennsylvania- Google "the T" and "Pennsyltucky". While I'm sure central PA has hidden gems, it's by and large a **** hole. I've spend more time than any human being should have to on I-80 and I-81 going all over the state, and I can tell you that I would not live anywhere besides suburban Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, and that's saying something if you knew who I am. I heard Erie has some decent parts, but I'm just trying to simplify things. I would rank Pittsburgh over Philadelphia as a city. I really, really like Pittsburgh. It's affordable, young, has lots to do, and most importantly it is affordable. Fox Chapel, Marshall Township, Upper St. Clair Township come to mind for nice suburbs. Philadelphia is much bigger, and has a lot of very nice but more expensive suburbs (Montgomery, Chester, Delaware counties are all chock full o' them). There are definitely a lot of dentists practicing there, but you can still carve out a living for sure. Good like dealing with Philly sports fans, however. These suburbs extend into Delaware, which provides me with a nice transition.

Delaware- northern Delaware is pretty much suburban Philadelphia with a better tax climate. You could do really well here. I don't know too much about individual towns or the rest of the state. Rehoboth Beach is beautiful but that's a vacation spot, not a place to practice.

New Jersey- DISCLAIMER: I ****ing hate New Jersey and don't suggest for a second for you to move there. It is a bastion of human vice, ill-behavior, industrial pollution, terrible drivers, stuck up rich suburbanites who infiltrate out of state universities because they can afford out of state tuition, and New York and Philadelphia sports fans. If you are able to find even one reason on God's green earth to move there, I will unequivocally recommend Sussex County as its hidden gem. You still have New York close-by, but you're free of the wanton greed and materialism, preposterous costs of living, and most importantly saturation that dominates metro NYC (northern NJ, NY, parts of Fairfield County, CT). Sussex County will be cheaper, less saturated, and much more pleasant of a place to live. South Jersey has some nice suburbs of Philadelphia that would make for a nice place to live and an alternative to metro NY. I'm not familiar enough with New Jersey to pick out hidden unsaturated gems but my advice would be to seek the outermost suburbs to get cheaper housing and less saturation. The beaches are beautiful the further south you go, but I'm not sure how it would be to practice on the coast.

New York- too large and diverse of a state in terms of practice climates and different regions for me to accurately describe. Westchester County and Long Island should be avoided not only due to somewhat saturation, but INSANE cost of living, traffic, etc. If you want to pay $1.2mil for a 3 bdr ranch on 0.2 acres in a good school system, be my guest. I'm not willing to do that, especially if my neighbors have New York accents and support the Yankees. Once you get further away from New York, there are nice suburbs of Buffalo/Rochester/Syracuse/Albany, I just am not terribly familiar with them. The Finger Lakes region is gorgeous, and there's actually a lot of rural farmland upstate, but upstate has some poorer places too (Schenectady, Poughkeepsie, Utica etc. Talk to native New Yorkers on this one, they'll be far more knowledgeable than I am.

Connecticut- I'm biased, but other than the most expensive parts of Fairfield County, almost everywhere is a good place to live or practice, with a few exceptions. Litchfield County is beautiful, rural, and classic New England. I would suggest living here and then traveling to work in Hartford's outer suburbs (Burlington, Simsbury, Canton) if you like gorgeous, quiet areas and money. Those three suburbs, along with Farmington, Avon, Granby, and West Hartford, are all affluent and with great patient bases and school systems. They all vary in accessibility to Hartford, cost, and character/feel. This takes care of Hartford's suburbs west of the river, South Windsor, Tolland, and Glastonbury are Hartford's nicest suburbs east of the river. These also provide more access to Storrs, in case you have a spouse working at UConn or just want to live/practice closer to that area. Once you get past Storrs into the quiet corner, it gets to be a little more poor and rural, but gorgeous nonetheless. It's like a poor man's Litchfield County. Living in Pomfret or Ashford and commuting into Storrs or Tolland would be a little bit of a drive but if you like peace and quiet and lots of land this could be a good option for you. Same goes for Bolton, Hebron, Marlborough etc if you wanted to be closer to Hartford and Glastonbury as well as Storrs. They're nice towns as well, and quiet but less isolated. If you want more coastline, Madison, Clinton and Guilford are nice towns commuting distance to New Haven and New London if you're willing to drive a little bit. Killingworth, Haddam, Lyme, Old Lyme, Deep River, Chester, Essex, Westbrook and Old Saybrook all fit this bill to varying degrees of waterfront, cost, character, feel, and relative proximity to the New Haven/ New London areas. Cheshire and Hamden nicer, more densely populated but still affluent places to live and practice if you're trying to stay more tethered to New Haven area and value shorter commutes and bigger neighborhood feel. Southbury, Ridgefield, Redding, New Milford, Newtown, Brookfield, and Bethel are all pretty nice and commuting distance to more wealthy parts of Fairfield County, and get you affordability and good schools without the price tag of some of the more heavyweight New York suburbs.

I can give pretty much limitless advice on CT if you're interested; it's what I know best. I can talk about it all day if you'd like.

Massachusetts- Boston and its suburbs are absolutely fantastic places to live but they are a little saturated and prohibitively expensive. Outer suburbs to the south, like as far down as Mansfield/Sharon area, will be more affordable and still great places to live. Same with further north like Andover/Acton/Bedford/Topsfield and the like. If you have a high income spouse or a spouse who wants a shorter commute, closer suburbs are still great places to practice, it's just really steep for housing in good school districts. Suburbs of Worcester, like Holden and Shrewbury, offer great bang for your buck in my opinion. By no means are they the only ones, but housing is cheaper and schools are still good once you go that way. I don't think the Cape would be a good place to practice based on seasonal residence and reliance upon tourism. Much of Central Mass is poorer and rural, and urban poor in Springfield, Chicopee, and Holyoke, but there are some better suburbs in the region like Wilbraham and East Longmeadow. Amherst is pretty cool too. Western Mass can be pretty rural and some places are poor, but Great Barrington, Lenox, and especially Williamstown are phenomenally beatituful and unsaturated enough to provide an awesome place to live and practice. Scenery abounds, but you're much further from Boston and the Cape. Worth it if you like land and peace and quiet, in my opinion. If I had to pick one place to live in the state it would be Williamstown hands down.

Rhode Island- the state is so geographically small that anywhere of consequence is commuting distance to anywhere else of consequence. East Greenwich, Narragansett, South Kingstown, and Barrington are pretty nice. There are some poorer regions, mainly inner city Providence, Central Falls, Woonsocket, and the interior rural areas, but they're easy to avoid. The beaches in Rhode Island are gorgeous, and Newport is a cool place for a day trip, so you can easily find a nice commute to everything. Not a complicated place to figure out, but it is the least affluent state overall in New England.

Vermont- sparesly populated for the most part and intensely beautiful, it's a great place to live. Burlington is more expensive than the rest of the state but still reasonable by comparison to a lot of places around the country. It has some nice suburbs too, both east of Burlington and those on Lake Champlain. The rest of the state has a much quieter and more rural feel, but still some great places to live and practice. Manchester, Shaftsbury, Bennington, and Montpelier come to mind. Rutland and St. Johnsbury have drug epidemics, as well as other rural, economically depressed towns. I should take a moment to pause and say this is ubiquitous across New England. Willimantic, CT is even worse. Rural areas have been hit hard by heroin in rural northern New Hampshire and Maine, as well as the rest of New England. New Bedford, Gloucester, Webster, and Fall River, MA share a similar feel. Same with Woonsocket, RI. This can easily be avoided but it's very sad and not a lot of people realize the extent to which idyllic New England isn't as picture perfect as others make it out to be. Also, our wealth inequality is quite sad, and makes for some dangerous cities. Still the best region of the country despite the heroin and wealth inequality issues. So back to Vermont; there are great places around the state to live and practice, and if you like hiking/skiing/hunting it's a great place for weekend activities.

Maine- it is expansive and beautiful, but most of the population is in and around Portland. Portland, Lewiston, Augusta, Bangor, Falmouth, Biddeford, Saco, Sanford etc are places where it's not too saturated and there's a population to support a practice. Now the rest of Maine is quite beautiful, but towns are more polarized with the middle class tourism industry folks and rich tourists and their second homes. There are picturesque beach towns to live in and commute into more populated towns, but it's prob best to practice in the population centers. Non-coastal Maine is rugged, beautiful, and quiet, but largely empty. Northern Maine has a lot of Francophones and a different culture, but it's a hell of a drive to get up there and it's poorer so unless you have strong French Canadian roots I wouldn't move up there. Also, beware of mosquitoes in inland Maine. Mother****ers are enormous...

This brings me to where, in my opinion, is the best place in the United States outside of Texas to practice dentistry.

New Hampshire- there are no state income or sales taxes in the state. If you don't own a big plot of land or buy a house that's too big and fancy (property taxes are the bulk of the tax liability for the state's residents), you will make a very, very good living. The Nashua/Manchester area in the southern part of the state has a lot of upper-middle income families with teeth that need a dentist. There are plenty of suburbs for you to live in and practice, and you are closer to Boston than you'd think. You're also close to the White Mountains for hiking, and all of New England's beaches are within a short drive. Not only will you avoid saturation, you'll keep more of what you earn than you otherwise would living most other places. Northern New Hampshire is a little poorer and more rural, but if you stick to the Manchester/Nashua area you will do quite well and be able to send your kids to good school districts.

Let me know if you need anything else.

Let's open a practice in Camden.

 

[fancymylotus]

Let's open a practice in Camden.

What a cesspool.


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[Scumbag_Steve]

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[Scumbag_Steve]

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[fancymylotus]

My niece was adopted out of Camden. The NICU nurse was talking to us right after she was born and told us that one time she got t-boned at an intersection. She lost consciousness for like less than five minutes, which is how long it took the ambulance to get there. During that amount of time, her wallet was stolen. Some person walking down the street in Camden literally stole the wallet out of an unconscious woman's pocket who had just been in a car crash. While she was still buckled in.

This is the northeast people don't know about. I'm sure Paterson, Newark, Baltimore, New Haven, Hartford, Bridgeport, Fall River, New Bedford, Providence, Springfield, and Worcester are home to similar tales.

All places that I actively avoid like the plague. I am very guilty of hiding out in my bubble world.


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[fancymylotus]

While I won't dispute it's a wonderful place to live, I'd argue it's a wonderful place to remain an associate forever and have a giant mortgage as well. If OP marries rich or goes to school for free then I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. I just assumed neither of those things will be in the cards for them. Hopefully I'll be mistaken.

I plan on moving my parents in with me because there's no way I'd ever send them to a nursing home or whatever if God forbid they get sick when they get (much) older so hopefully they'll be able to help with the aforementioned giant mortgage


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[JLT223]

Maryland- I don't know if you consider Maryland the northeast, but suburban DC has some very wealthy places (think Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Potomac and the like) where patients will abound. However, due to astronomically high cost of living (imagine paying $600,000 for a 2bdr condo just to get your kids into a good school district) and relative saturation of practitioners I would avoid suburban the suburban DC like it has an STD. I don't know if the Baltimore suburbs are less saturated (I would venture to guess they are), but I know they are at least slightly to moderately more affordable. Lutherville-Timonium, Ellicot City, Towson, Cantonsville, come to mind for good suburbs. I would stay away from Hagerstown and areas west (Frostburg, Cumberland and the like) because they're a bit poorer. I don't know much about the Eastern Shore or more rural areas, but I bet the hidden gems with low cost of living and high income potential are hidden away from Baltimore/DC suburbs.

Pennsylvania- Google "the T" and "Pennsyltucky". While I'm sure central PA has hidden gems, it's by and large a **** hole. I've spend more time than any human being should have to on I-80 and I-81 going all over the state, and I can tell you that I would not live anywhere besides suburban Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, and that's saying something if you knew who I am. I heard Erie has some decent parts, but I'm just trying to simplify things. I would rank Pittsburgh over Philadelphia as a city. I really, really like Pittsburgh. It's affordable, young, has lots to do, and most importantly it is affordable. Fox Chapel, Marshall Township, Upper St. Clair Township come to mind for nice suburbs. Philadelphia is much bigger, and has a lot of very nice but more expensive suburbs (Montgomery, Chester, Delaware counties are all chock full o' them). There are definitely a lot of dentists practicing there, but you can still carve out a living for sure. Good like dealing with Philly sports fans, however. These suburbs extend into Delaware, which provides me with a nice transition.

Delaware- northern Delaware is pretty much suburban Philadelphia with a better tax climate. You could do really well here. I don't know too much about individual towns or the rest of the state. Rehoboth Beach is beautiful but that's a vacation spot, not a place to practice.

New Jersey- DISCLAIMER: I ****ing hate New Jersey and don't suggest for a second for you to move there. It is a bastion of human vice, ill-behavior, industrial pollution, terrible drivers, stuck up rich suburbanites who infiltrate out of state universities because they can afford out of state tuition, and New York and Philadelphia sports fans. If you are able to find even one reason on God's green earth to move there, I will unequivocally recommend Sussex County as its hidden gem. You still have New York close-by, but you're free of the wanton greed and materialism, preposterous costs of living, and most importantly saturation that dominates metro NYC (northern NJ, NY, parts of Fairfield County, CT). Sussex County will be cheaper, less saturated, and much more pleasant of a place to live. South Jersey has some nice suburbs of Philadelphia that would make for a nice place to live and an alternative to metro NY. I'm not familiar enough with New Jersey to pick out hidden unsaturated gems but my advice would be to seek the outermost suburbs to get cheaper housing and less saturation. The beaches are beautiful the further south you go, but I'm not sure how it would be to practice on the coast.

New York- too large and diverse of a state in terms of practice climates and different regions for me to accurately describe. Westchester County and Long Island should be avoided not only due to somewhat saturation, but INSANE cost of living, traffic, etc. If you want to pay $1.2mil for a 3 bdr ranch on 0.2 acres in a good school system, be my guest. I'm not willing to do that, especially if my neighbors have New York accents and support the Yankees. Once you get further away from New York, there are nice suburbs of Buffalo/Rochester/Syracuse/Albany, I just am not terribly familiar with them. The Finger Lakes region is gorgeous, and there's actually a lot of rural farmland upstate, but upstate has some poorer places too (Schenectady, Poughkeepsie, Utica etc. Talk to native New Yorkers on this one, they'll be far more knowledgeable than I am.

Connecticut- I'm biased, but other than the most expensive parts of Fairfield County, almost everywhere is a good place to live or practice, with a few exceptions. Litchfield County is beautiful, rural, and classic New England. I would suggest living here and then traveling to work in Hartford's outer suburbs (Burlington, Simsbury, Canton) if you like gorgeous, quiet areas and money. Those three suburbs, along with Farmington, Avon, Granby, and West Hartford, are all affluent and with great patient bases and school systems. They all vary in accessibility to Hartford, cost, and character/feel. This takes care of Hartford's suburbs west of the river, South Windsor, Tolland, and Glastonbury are Hartford's nicest suburbs east of the river. These also provide more access to Storrs, in case you have a spouse working at UConn or just want to live/practice closer to that area. Once you get past Storrs into the quiet corner, it gets to be a little more poor and rural, but gorgeous nonetheless. It's like a poor man's Litchfield County. Living in Pomfret or Ashford and commuting into Storrs or Tolland would be a little bit of a drive but if you like peace and quiet and lots of land this could be a good option for you. Same goes for Bolton, Hebron, Marlborough etc if you wanted to be closer to Hartford and Glastonbury as well as Storrs. They're nice towns as well, and quiet but less isolated. If you want more coastline, Madison, Clinton and Guilford are nice towns commuting distance to New Haven and New London if you're willing to drive a little bit. Killingworth, Haddam, Lyme, Old Lyme, Deep River, Chester, Essex, Westbrook and Old Saybrook all fit this bill to varying degrees of waterfront, cost, character, feel, and relative proximity to the New Haven/ New London areas. Cheshire and Hamden nicer, more densely populated but still affluent places to live and practice if you're trying to stay more tethered to New Haven area and value shorter commutes and bigger neighborhood feel. Southbury, Ridgefield, Redding, New Milford, Newtown, Brookfield, and Bethel are all pretty nice and commuting distance to more wealthy parts of Fairfield County, and get you affordability and good schools without the price tag of some of the more heavyweight New York suburbs.

I can give pretty much limitless advice on CT if you're interested; it's what I know best. I can talk about it all day if you'd like.

Massachusetts- Boston and its suburbs are absolutely fantastic places to live but they are a little saturated and prohibitively expensive. Outer suburbs to the south, like as far down as Mansfield/Sharon area, will be more affordable and still great places to live. Same with further north like Andover/Acton/Bedford/Topsfield and the like. If you have a high income spouse or a spouse who wants a shorter commute, closer suburbs are still great places to practice, it's just really steep for housing in good school districts. Suburbs of Worcester, like Holden and Shrewbury, offer great bang for your buck in my opinion. By no means are they the only ones, but housing is cheaper and schools are still good once you go that way. I don't think the Cape would be a good place to practice based on seasonal residence and reliance upon tourism. Much of Central Mass is poorer and rural, and urban poor in Springfield, Chicopee, and Holyoke, but there are some better suburbs in the region like Wilbraham and East Longmeadow. Amherst is pretty cool too. Western Mass can be pretty rural and some places are poor, but Great Barrington, Lenox, and especially Williamstown are phenomenally beatituful and unsaturated enough to provide an awesome place to live and practice. Scenery abounds, but you're much further from Boston and the Cape. Worth it if you like land and peace and quiet, in my opinion. If I had to pick one place to live in the state it would be Williamstown hands down.

Rhode Island- the state is so geographically small that anywhere of consequence is commuting distance to anywhere else of consequence. East Greenwich, Narragansett, South Kingstown, and Barrington are pretty nice. There are some poorer regions, mainly inner city Providence, Central Falls, Woonsocket, and the interior rural areas, but they're easy to avoid. The beaches in Rhode Island are gorgeous, and Newport is a cool place for a day trip, so you can easily find a nice commute to everything. Not a complicated place to figure out, but it is the least affluent state overall in New England.

Vermont- sparesly populated for the most part and intensely beautiful, it's a great place to live. Burlington is more expensive than the rest of the state but still reasonable by comparison to a lot of places around the country. It has some nice suburbs too, both east of Burlington and those on Lake Champlain. The rest of the state has a much quieter and more rural feel, but still some great places to live and practice. Manchester, Shaftsbury, Bennington, and Montpelier come to mind. Rutland and St. Johnsbury have drug epidemics, as well as other rural, economically depressed towns. I should take a moment to pause and say this is ubiquitous across New England. Willimantic, CT is even worse. Rural areas have been hit hard by heroin in rural northern New Hampshire and Maine, as well as the rest of New England. New Bedford, Gloucester, Webster, and Fall River, MA share a similar feel. Same with Woonsocket, RI. This can easily be avoided but it's very sad and not a lot of people realize the extent to which idyllic New England isn't as picture perfect as others make it out to be. Also, our wealth inequality is quite sad, and makes for some dangerous cities. Still the best region of the country despite the heroin and wealth inequality issues. So back to Vermont; there are great places around the state to live and practice, and if you like hiking/skiing/hunting it's a great place for weekend activities.

Maine- it is expansive and beautiful, but most of the population is in and around Portland. Portland, Lewiston, Augusta, Bangor, Falmouth, Biddeford, Saco, Sanford etc are places where it's not too saturated and there's a population to support a practice. Now the rest of Maine is quite beautiful, but towns are more polarized with the middle class tourism industry folks and rich tourists and their second homes. There are picturesque beach towns to live in and commute into more populated towns, but it's prob best to practice in the population centers. Non-coastal Maine is rugged, beautiful, and quiet, but largely empty. Northern Maine has a lot of Francophones and a different culture, but it's a hell of a drive to get up there and it's poorer so unless you have strong French Canadian roots I wouldn't move up there. Also, beware of mosquitoes in inland Maine. Mother****ers are enormous...

This brings me to where, in my opinion, is the best place in the United States outside of Texas to practice dentistry.

New Hampshire- there are no state income or sales taxes in the state. If you don't own a big plot of land or buy a house that's too big and fancy (property taxes are the bulk of the tax liability for the state's residents), you will make a very, very good living. The Nashua/Manchester area in the southern part of the state has a lot of upper-middle income families with teeth that need a dentist. There are plenty of suburbs for you to live in and practice, and you are closer to Boston than you'd think. You're also close to the White Mountains for hiking, and all of New England's beaches are within a short drive. Not only will you avoid saturation, you'll keep more of what you earn than you otherwise would living most other places. Northern New Hampshire is a little poorer and more rural, but if you stick to the Manchester/Nashua area you will do quite well and be able to send your kids to good school districts.

Let me know if you need anything else.

Went to University of Delaware for undergrad. Can confirm DE is in need of dentists and CHEAP to live in. Also, there's no tax. It's incredible.

 

[schmoob]

Went to University of Delaware for undergrad. Can confirm DE is in need of dentists and CHEAP to live in. Also, there's no tax. It's incredible.

And you can buy Costco brand liquor.

Amazing.

 

[CareerNumTwo]

This brings me to where, in my opinion, is the best place in the United States outside of Texas to practice dentistry.

Out of curiousity... why, in your opinion, is Texas #1? Forgive me if it was explained previously. This has become a long thread!

 

[JakeSill]

How are community college courses looked at? Going to be taking Physics 1 and 2.

 

[nateriver]

Do you think any specialities are on the decline in the coming future ?


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[Scumbag_Steve]

[.

 

[Scumbag_Steve]

.

 

[Streax1]

#scumbagisthenewfancy

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[JLT223]

Do you think any specialities are on the decline in the coming future ?


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She answered this way back

 

[fancymylotus]

Do you think any specialities are on the decline in the coming future ?


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I think the solo practitioner(speciality or not) type practice is on the decline.

Patients don't like being turfed around for different procedures

There is a boatload of competition(area dependent of course)

Advertising and marketing is difficult




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[nateriver]

I think the solo practitioner(speciality or not) type practice is on the decline.

Patients don't like being turfed around for different procedures

There is a boatload of competition(area dependent of course)

Advertising and marketing is difficult




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Thanks for your answer fancy, sorry for asking a repeated question


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[nateriver]

She answered this way back

My bad lol


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[deleted446889]

Maryland- I don't know if you consider Maryland the northeast, but suburban DC has some very wealthy places (think Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Potomac and the like) where patients will abound. However, due to astronomically high cost of living (imagine paying $600,000 for a 2bdr condo just to get your kids into a good school district) and relative saturation of practitioners I would avoid suburban the suburban DC like it has an STD. I don't know if the Baltimore suburbs are less saturated (I would venture to guess they are), but I know they are at least slightly to moderately more affordable. Lutherville-Timonium, Ellicot City, Towson, Cantonsville, come to mind for good suburbs. I would stay away from Hagerstown and areas west (Frostburg, Cumberland and the like) because they're a bit poorer. I don't know much about the Eastern Shore or more rural areas, but I bet the hidden gems with low cost of living and high income potential are hidden away from Baltimore/DC suburbs.

Pennsylvania- Google "the T" and "Pennsyltucky". While I'm sure central PA has hidden gems, it's by and large a **** hole. I've spend more time than any human being should have to on I-80 and I-81 going all over the state, and I can tell you that I would not live anywhere besides suburban Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, and that's saying something if you knew who I am. I heard Erie has some decent parts, but I'm just trying to simplify things. I would rank Pittsburgh over Philadelphia as a city. I really, really like Pittsburgh. It's affordable, young, has lots to do, and most importantly it is affordable. Fox Chapel, Marshall Township, Upper St. Clair Township come to mind for nice suburbs. Philadelphia is much bigger, and has a lot of very nice but more expensive suburbs (Montgomery, Chester, Delaware counties are all chock full o' them). There are definitely a lot of dentists practicing there, but you can still carve out a living for sure. Good like dealing with Philly sports fans, however. These suburbs extend into Delaware, which provides me with a nice transition.

Delaware- northern Delaware is pretty much suburban Philadelphia with a better tax climate. You could do really well here. I don't know too much about individual towns or the rest of the state. Rehoboth Beach is beautiful but that's a vacation spot, not a place to practice.

New Jersey- DISCLAIMER: I ****ing hate New Jersey and don't suggest for a second for you to move there. It is a bastion of human vice, ill-behavior, industrial pollution, terrible drivers, stuck up rich suburbanites who infiltrate out of state universities because they can afford out of state tuition, and New York and Philadelphia sports fans. If you are able to find even one reason on God's green earth to move there, I will unequivocally recommend Sussex County as its hidden gem. You still have New York close-by, but you're free of the wanton greed and materialism, preposterous costs of living, and most importantly saturation that dominates metro NYC (northern NJ, NY, parts of Fairfield County, CT). Sussex County will be cheaper, less saturated, and much more pleasant of a place to live. South Jersey has some nice suburbs of Philadelphia that would make for a nice place to live and an alternative to metro NY. I'm not familiar enough with New Jersey to pick out hidden unsaturated gems but my advice would be to seek the outermost suburbs to get cheaper housing and less saturation. The beaches are beautiful the further south you go, but I'm not sure how it would be to practice on the coast.

New York- too large and diverse of a state in terms of practice climates and different regions for me to accurately describe. Westchester County and Long Island should be avoided not only due to somewhat saturation, but INSANE cost of living, traffic, etc. If you want to pay $1.2mil for a 3 bdr ranch on 0.2 acres in a good school system, be my guest. I'm not willing to do that, especially if my neighbors have New York accents and support the Yankees. Once you get further away from New York, there are nice suburbs of Buffalo/Rochester/Syracuse/Albany, I just am not terribly familiar with them. The Finger Lakes region is gorgeous, and there's actually a lot of rural farmland upstate, but upstate has some poorer places too (Schenectady, Poughkeepsie, Utica etc. Talk to native New Yorkers on this one, they'll be far more knowledgeable than I am.

Connecticut- I'm biased, but other than the most expensive parts of Fairfield County, almost everywhere is a good place to live or practice, with a few exceptions. Litchfield County is beautiful, rural, and classic New England. I would suggest living here and then traveling to work in Hartford's outer suburbs (Burlington, Simsbury, Canton) if you like gorgeous, quiet areas and money. Those three suburbs, along with Farmington, Avon, Granby, and West Hartford, are all affluent and with great patient bases and school systems. They all vary in accessibility to Hartford, cost, and character/feel. This takes care of Hartford's suburbs west of the river, South Windsor, Tolland, and Glastonbury are Hartford's nicest suburbs east of the river. These also provide more access to Storrs, in case you have a spouse working at UConn or just want to live/practice closer to that area. Once you get past Storrs into the quiet corner, it gets to be a little more poor and rural, but gorgeous nonetheless. It's like a poor man's Litchfield County. Living in Pomfret or Ashford and commuting into Storrs or Tolland would be a little bit of a drive but if you like peace and quiet and lots of land this could be a good option for you. Same goes for Bolton, Hebron, Marlborough etc if you wanted to be closer to Hartford and Glastonbury as well as Storrs. They're nice towns as well, and quiet but less isolated. If you want more coastline, Madison, Clinton and Guilford are nice towns commuting distance to New Haven and New London if you're willing to drive a little bit. Killingworth, Haddam, Lyme, Old Lyme, Deep River, Chester, Essex, Westbrook and Old Saybrook all fit this bill to varying degrees of waterfront, cost, character, feel, and relative proximity to the New Haven/ New London areas. Cheshire and Hamden nicer, more densely populated but still affluent places to live and practice if you're trying to stay more tethered to New Haven area and value shorter commutes and bigger neighborhood feel. Southbury, Ridgefield, Redding, New Milford, Newtown, Brookfield, and Bethel are all pretty nice and commuting distance to more wealthy parts of Fairfield County, and get you affordability and good schools without the price tag of some of the more heavyweight New York suburbs.

I can give pretty much limitless advice on CT if you're interested; it's what I know best. I can talk about it all day if you'd like.

Massachusetts- Boston and its suburbs are absolutely fantastic places to live but they are a little saturated and prohibitively expensive. Outer suburbs to the south, like as far down as Mansfield/Sharon area, will be more affordable and still great places to live. Same with further north like Andover/Acton/Bedford/Topsfield and the like. If you have a high income spouse or a spouse who wants a shorter commute, closer suburbs are still great places to practice, it's just really steep for housing in good school districts. Suburbs of Worcester, like Holden and Shrewbury, offer great bang for your buck in my opinion. By no means are they the only ones, but housing is cheaper and schools are still good once you go that way. I don't think the Cape would be a good place to practice based on seasonal residence and reliance upon tourism. Much of Central Mass is poorer and rural, and urban poor in Springfield, Chicopee, and Holyoke, but there are some better suburbs in the region like Wilbraham and East Longmeadow. Amherst is pretty cool too. Western Mass can be pretty rural and some places are poor, but Great Barrington, Lenox, and especially Williamstown are phenomenally beatituful and unsaturated enough to provide an awesome place to live and practice. Scenery abounds, but you're much further from Boston and the Cape. Worth it if you like land and peace and quiet, in my opinion. If I had to pick one place to live in the state it would be Williamstown hands down.

Rhode Island- the state is so geographically small that anywhere of consequence is commuting distance to anywhere else of consequence. East Greenwich, Narragansett, South Kingstown, and Barrington are pretty nice. There are some poorer regions, mainly inner city Providence, Central Falls, Woonsocket, and the interior rural areas, but they're easy to avoid. The beaches in Rhode Island are gorgeous, and Newport is a cool place for a day trip, so you can easily find a nice commute to everything. Not a complicated place to figure out, but it is the least affluent state overall in New England.

Vermont- sparesly populated for the most part and intensely beautiful, it's a great place to live. Burlington is more expensive than the rest of the state but still reasonable by comparison to a lot of places around the country. It has some nice suburbs too, both east of Burlington and those on Lake Champlain. The rest of the state has a much quieter and more rural feel, but still some great places to live and practice. Manchester, Shaftsbury, Bennington, and Montpelier come to mind. Rutland and St. Johnsbury have drug epidemics, as well as other rural, economically depressed towns. I should take a moment to pause and say this is ubiquitous across New England. Willimantic, CT is even worse. Rural areas have been hit hard by heroin in rural northern New Hampshire and Maine, as well as the rest of New England. New Bedford, Gloucester, Webster, and Fall River, MA share a similar feel. Same with Woonsocket, RI. This can easily be avoided but it's very sad and not a lot of people realize the extent to which idyllic New England isn't as picture perfect as others make it out to be. Also, our wealth inequality is quite sad, and makes for some dangerous cities. Still the best region of the country despite the heroin and wealth inequality issues. So back to Vermont; there are great places around the state to live and practice, and if you like hiking/skiing/hunting it's a great place for weekend activities.

Maine- it is expansive and beautiful, but most of the population is in and around Portland. Portland, Lewiston, Augusta, Bangor, Falmouth, Biddeford, Saco, Sanford etc are places where it's not too saturated and there's a population to support a practice. Now the rest of Maine is quite beautiful, but towns are more polarized with the middle class tourism industry folks and rich tourists and their second homes. There are picturesque beach towns to live in and commute into more populated towns, but it's prob best to practice in the population centers. Non-coastal Maine is rugged, beautiful, and quiet, but largely empty. Northern Maine has a lot of Francophones and a different culture, but it's a hell of a drive to get up there and it's poorer so unless you have strong French Canadian roots I wouldn't move up there. Also, beware of mosquitoes in inland Maine. Mother****ers are enormous...

This brings me to where, in my opinion, is the best place in the United States outside of Texas to practice dentistry.

New Hampshire- there are no state income or sales taxes in the state. If you don't own a big plot of land or buy a house that's too big and fancy (property taxes are the bulk of the tax liability for the state's residents), you will make a very, very good living. The Nashua/Manchester area in the southern part of the state has a lot of upper-middle income families with teeth that need a dentist. There are plenty of suburbs for you to live in and practice, and you are closer to Boston than you'd think. You're also close to the White Mountains for hiking, and all of New England's beaches are within a short drive. Not only will you avoid saturation, you'll keep more of what you earn than you otherwise would living most other places. Northern New Hampshire is a little poorer and more rural, but if you stick to the Manchester/Nashua area you will do quite well and be able to send your kids to good school districts.

Let me know if you need anything else.

WOW. I am absolutely floored by how knowledgeable and helpful you are! I can't thank you enough! I'm even copying all this and saving it as a word document to reference later (still have a while to go). This is honestly one of the most helpful posts I've seen on SDN.

I hate the heat like you, so I don't feel inclined to go to Texas or stay in Florida, but due to family I have to at least consider FL. What do you know about it, specifically Central Florida?

California would be very nice to live in, but I'm almost afraid to ask what it's like for Dentists there.

 

[Scumbag_Steve]

.

 

[nateriver]

I don't know too much about central Florida other than that the interior is pretty empty. I know Gainesville and Orlando/Kissimmee/Winter Park would be your two best options to practice if you're going to be inland, and both coasts have some good places to live. In my opinion your best bet would be to live in the outer suburbs of these towns and commute either into the city (thus taking advantage of rich patients with risk of saturation), or commuting out further into the boonies (avoiding saturation with the risk of having patients that are poor/don't take care of their teeth). Either way you'll get a beautiful house and decent schools at a bargain price. Of my limited time in central Florida I have preferred the Gulf side to the Atlantic side. If you're looking at beach living. The panhandle area around Pensacola is awesome, although I wouldn't consider it "central" Florida. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful. No state income tax and low cost of living in inland Florida could make for a very comfortable lifestyle if you spend all your money on central air all year round

Also, I visited Miami this weekend and while it was like another world and a bit saturated, if you're fluent in Spanish you could do very well in South Florida.

I'm fairly fluent in Spanish due to my background and I plan on living in and practicing in Miami/ Lauderdale one day, I literally can't wait lol


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[Scumbag_Steve]

/

 

[schmoob]

If you are ready to defeat the other thousands of dentist in the area in hand-to-hand, to-the-death combat then perhaps you will be able to survive the saturation down there. I wish you the best of lucky my friend.

Mano e mano!!

 

[Scumbag_Steve]

.

 

[stag123]

Oh no worries, it wasn't explained previously but I always thought it was assumed!

So I'm a bit of an outlier in that I view the weather in Texas as a negative. Not even just because of recent events in Houston, higher risk of tornadoes etc, I just really hate the heat. I couldn't bear to live in Texas because the winter isn't snowy enough and the summer is too oppressively brutal. If you can get past the weather however, Texas is hands down the best place to practice dentistry for a few very important reasons

• No state income tax. In Connecticut, if you make $250,000 per year, you pay $16,750 in state income taxes. Making the same amount in Texas, you can buy a brand new Honda Fit every single year, or go on four really luxurious vacations per year, just using the money you save in state income taxes. Or save it all. Or use it to pay off your debt a year earlier
• STUPID low cost of living. I love how people's only knock on Austin is that it is expensive. I looked at home prices there and it is cheaper than a lot of places around the country. Same with the affluent suburbs of Dallas and Houston. People complain and think they're "expensive", but they have no idea what expensive really is. Outside of these places, home prices are literally ridiculous. I really sometimes wonder how prices have stayed so low. I bet this trend will start to go away with how quickly the state's economy is growing and people start flocking to the state in even greater numbers than they already are. I'll hopefully be chilling in the cool dawn air in New England while they're all dealing with sweaty testicles. But that's just my preference. With the money you save on state income tax, you can afford a mortgage payment of $1,000 per month more than you would in Connecticut, making the affordability of housing even greater. Also, Connecticut's housing is nowhere near as expensive as much of the nice suburbs of California, Chicago, metro DC, metro NY, metro Boston, metro Seattle so Texas can be compared to many other places, not just my home
  
• People are accustomed to driving long distances. If you live in an outer suburb of a larger city, or even in a smaller city far removed from civilization (Lubbock, Amarillo, El Paso etc), people will be commuting upwards of 45 mins regularly to work. They won't think twice about driving that far to go to a dentist. You can pull patients from large geographical areas, which helps combat competition and saturation.
• General economic climate- I read the Hartford Courant and there are constantly worries over the state employee pension funds, companies fleeing to better tax climates in other states, shrinking tax bases in our cities, and people in general bitching about taxes. There are sunny skies ahead in Texas, even if oil declines. This cannot be said of some other parts of the country, although the economy is doing much better than it was 8 years ago and people like to tell us otherwise. It's not that the rest of the country is going down the ****ter, it's just that Texas is in a bit better shape than most places. Also, it's not a disaster waiting to happen like North Dakota, which relies too heavily on one industry. Texas is diversified enough to provide you with a plethora of patients willing to give you money for years to come

As someone who was born and raised in Houston my whole life, I agree with this 100%. ESPECIALLY about the driving distance.

Just to give a general example, my back in the day boyfriend lived an hour and 45mins away (with NO traffic) from me and he was still living in the same city. That is how big this city is

 

[jippyslim]

I lived in the DC area for quite a while and traveled the northeast extensively. @Scumbag_Steve's summary is pretty spot on. I would like to be back on the east coast after dental school.

 

[fancymylotus]

As much as I love my northeast, there are far better and more affordable areas for a new grad looking to get established





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[nateriver]

If you are ready to defeat the other thousands of dentist in the area in hand-to-hand, to-the-death combat then perhaps you will be able to survive the saturation down there. I wish you the best of lucky my friend.

I will build my office and they will come lmao, no but seriously yeah I plan on being in Lauderdale which is less saturated than Miami itself lmao


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[hellofuturedentists]

I will build my office and they will come lmao, no but seriously yeah I plan on being in Lauderdale which is less saturated than Miami itself lmao


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I went to Ft. Lauderdale recently. Maybe we were in different areas but I saw a dental office on like every block

 

[Incis0r]

Maryland- I don't know if you consider Maryland the northeast, but suburban DC has some very wealthy places (think Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Potomac and the like) where patients will abound. However, due to astronomically high cost of living (imagine paying $600,000 for a 2bdr condo just to get your kids into a good school district) and relative saturation of practitioners I would avoid suburban the suburban DC like it has an STD. I don't know if the Baltimore suburbs are less saturated (I would venture to guess they are), but I know they are at least slightly to moderately more affordable. Lutherville-Timonium, Ellicot City, Towson, Cantonsville, come to mind for good suburbs. I would stay away from Hagerstown and areas west (Frostburg, Cumberland and the like) because they're a bit poorer. I don't know much about the Eastern Shore or more rural areas, but I bet the hidden gems with low cost of living and high income potential are hidden away from Baltimore/DC suburbs.

Pennsylvania- Google "the T" and "Pennsyltucky". While I'm sure central PA has hidden gems, it's by and large a **** hole. I've spend more time than any human being should have to on I-80 and I-81 going all over the state, and I can tell you that I would not live anywhere besides suburban Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, and that's saying something if you knew who I am. I heard Erie has some decent parts, but I'm just trying to simplify things. I would rank Pittsburgh over Philadelphia as a city. I really, really like Pittsburgh. It's affordable, young, has lots to do, and most importantly it is affordable. Fox Chapel, Marshall Township, Upper St. Clair Township come to mind for nice suburbs. Philadelphia is much bigger, and has a lot of very nice but more expensive suburbs (Montgomery, Chester, Delaware counties are all chock full o' them). There are definitely a lot of dentists practicing there, but you can still carve out a living for sure. Good like dealing with Philly sports fans, however. These suburbs extend into Delaware, which provides me with a nice transition.

Delaware- northern Delaware is pretty much suburban Philadelphia with a better tax climate. You could do really well here. I don't know too much about individual towns or the rest of the state. Rehoboth Beach is beautiful but that's a vacation spot, not a place to practice.

New Jersey- DISCLAIMER: I ****ing hate New Jersey and don't suggest for a second for you to move there. It is a bastion of human vice, ill-behavior, industrial pollution, terrible drivers, stuck up rich suburbanites who infiltrate out of state universities because they can afford out of state tuition, and New York and Philadelphia sports fans. If you are able to find even one reason on God's green earth to move there, I will unequivocally recommend Sussex County as its hidden gem. You still have New York close-by, but you're free of the wanton greed and materialism, preposterous costs of living, and most importantly saturation that dominates metro NYC (northern NJ, NY, parts of Fairfield County, CT). Sussex County will be cheaper, less saturated, and much more pleasant of a place to live. South Jersey has some nice suburbs of Philadelphia that would make for a nice place to live and an alternative to metro NY. I'm not familiar enough with New Jersey to pick out hidden unsaturated gems but my advice would be to seek the outermost suburbs to get cheaper housing and less saturation. The beaches are beautiful the further south you go, but I'm not sure how it would be to practice on the coast.

New York- too large and diverse of a state in terms of practice climates and different regions for me to accurately describe. Westchester County and Long Island should be avoided not only due to somewhat saturation, but INSANE cost of living, traffic, etc. If you want to pay $1.2mil for a 3 bdr ranch on 0.2 acres in a good school system, be my guest. I'm not willing to do that, especially if my neighbors have New York accents and support the Yankees. Once you get further away from New York, there are nice suburbs of Buffalo/Rochester/Syracuse/Albany, I just am not terribly familiar with them. The Finger Lakes region is gorgeous, and there's actually a lot of rural farmland upstate, but upstate has some poorer places too (Schenectady, Poughkeepsie, Utica etc. Talk to native New Yorkers on this one, they'll be far more knowledgeable than I am.

Connecticut- I'm biased, but other than the most expensive parts of Fairfield County, almost everywhere is a good place to live or practice, with a few exceptions. Litchfield County is beautiful, rural, and classic New England. I would suggest living here and then traveling to work in Hartford's outer suburbs (Burlington, Simsbury, Canton) if you like gorgeous, quiet areas and money. Those three suburbs, along with Farmington, Avon, Granby, and West Hartford, are all affluent and with great patient bases and school systems. They all vary in accessibility to Hartford, cost, and character/feel. This takes care of Hartford's suburbs west of the river, South Windsor, Tolland, and Glastonbury are Hartford's nicest suburbs east of the river. These also provide more access to Storrs, in case you have a spouse working at UConn or just want to live/practice closer to that area. Once you get past Storrs into the quiet corner, it gets to be a little more poor and rural, but gorgeous nonetheless. It's like a poor man's Litchfield County. Living in Pomfret or Ashford and commuting into Storrs or Tolland would be a little bit of a drive but if you like peace and quiet and lots of land this could be a good option for you. Same goes for Bolton, Hebron, Marlborough etc if you wanted to be closer to Hartford and Glastonbury as well as Storrs. They're nice towns as well, and quiet but less isolated. If you want more coastline, Madison, Clinton and Guilford are nice towns commuting distance to New Haven and New London if you're willing to drive a little bit. Killingworth, Haddam, Lyme, Old Lyme, Deep River, Chester, Essex, Westbrook and Old Saybrook all fit this bill to varying degrees of waterfront, cost, character, feel, and relative proximity to the New Haven/ New London areas. Cheshire and Hamden nicer, more densely populated but still affluent places to live and practice if you're trying to stay more tethered to New Haven area and value shorter commutes and bigger neighborhood feel. Southbury, Ridgefield, Redding, New Milford, Newtown, Brookfield, and Bethel are all pretty nice and commuting distance to more wealthy parts of Fairfield County, and get you affordability and good schools without the price tag of some of the more heavyweight New York suburbs.

I can give pretty much limitless advice on CT if you're interested; it's what I know best. I can talk about it all day if you'd like.

Massachusetts- Boston and its suburbs are absolutely fantastic places to live but they are a little saturated and prohibitively expensive. Outer suburbs to the south, like as far down as Mansfield/Sharon area, will be more affordable and still great places to live. Same with further north like Andover/Acton/Bedford/Topsfield and the like. If you have a high income spouse or a spouse who wants a shorter commute, closer suburbs are still great places to practice, it's just really steep for housing in good school districts. Suburbs of Worcester, like Holden and Shrewbury, offer great bang for your buck in my opinion. By no means are they the only ones, but housing is cheaper and schools are still good once you go that way. I don't think the Cape would be a good place to practice based on seasonal residence and reliance upon tourism. Much of Central Mass is poorer and rural, and urban poor in Springfield, Chicopee, and Holyoke, but there are some better suburbs in the region like Wilbraham and East Longmeadow. Amherst is pretty cool too. Western Mass can be pretty rural and some places are poor, but Great Barrington, Lenox, and especially Williamstown are phenomenally beatituful and unsaturated enough to provide an awesome place to live and practice. Scenery abounds, but you're much further from Boston and the Cape. Worth it if you like land and peace and quiet, in my opinion. If I had to pick one place to live in the state it would be Williamstown hands down.

Rhode Island- the state is so geographically small that anywhere of consequence is commuting distance to anywhere else of consequence. East Greenwich, Narragansett, South Kingstown, and Barrington are pretty nice. There are some poorer regions, mainly inner city Providence, Central Falls, Woonsocket, and the interior rural areas, but they're easy to avoid. The beaches in Rhode Island are gorgeous, and Newport is a cool place for a day trip, so you can easily find a nice commute to everything. Not a complicated place to figure out, but it is the least affluent state overall in New England.

Vermont- sparesly populated for the most part and intensely beautiful, it's a great place to live. Burlington is more expensive than the rest of the state but still reasonable by comparison to a lot of places around the country. It has some nice suburbs too, both east of Burlington and those on Lake Champlain. The rest of the state has a much quieter and more rural feel, but still some great places to live and practice. Manchester, Shaftsbury, Bennington, and Montpelier come to mind. Rutland and St. Johnsbury have drug epidemics, as well as other rural, economically depressed towns. I should take a moment to pause and say this is ubiquitous across New England. Willimantic, CT is even worse. Rural areas have been hit hard by heroin in rural northern New Hampshire and Maine, as well as the rest of New England. New Bedford, Gloucester, Webster, and Fall River, MA share a similar feel. Same with Woonsocket, RI. This can easily be avoided but it's very sad and not a lot of people realize the extent to which idyllic New England isn't as picture perfect as others make it out to be. Also, our wealth inequality is quite sad, and makes for some dangerous cities. Still the best region of the country despite the heroin and wealth inequality issues. So back to Vermont; there are great places around the state to live and practice, and if you like hiking/skiing/hunting it's a great place for weekend activities.

Maine- it is expansive and beautiful, but most of the population is in and around Portland. Portland, Lewiston, Augusta, Bangor, Falmouth, Biddeford, Saco, Sanford etc are places where it's not too saturated and there's a population to support a practice. Now the rest of Maine is quite beautiful, but towns are more polarized with the middle class tourism industry folks and rich tourists and their second homes. There are picturesque beach towns to live in and commute into more populated towns, but it's prob best to practice in the population centers. Non-coastal Maine is rugged, beautiful, and quiet, but largely empty. Northern Maine has a lot of Francophones and a different culture, but it's a hell of a drive to get up there and it's poorer so unless you have strong French Canadian roots I wouldn't move up there. Also, beware of mosquitoes in inland Maine. Mother****ers are enormous...

This brings me to where, in my opinion, is the best place in the United States outside of Texas to practice dentistry.

New Hampshire- there are no state income or sales taxes in the state. If you don't own a big plot of land or buy a house that's too big and fancy (property taxes are the bulk of the tax liability for the state's residents), you will make a very, very good living. The Nashua/Manchester area in the southern part of the state has a lot of upper-middle income families with teeth that need a dentist. There are plenty of suburbs for you to live in and practice, and you are closer to Boston than you'd think. You're also close to the White Mountains for hiking, and all of New England's beaches are within a short drive. Not only will you avoid saturation, you'll keep more of what you earn than you otherwise would living most other places. Northern New Hampshire is a little poorer and more rural, but if you stick to the Manchester/Nashua area you will do quite well and be able to send your kids to good school districts.

Let me know if you need anything else.

#scumbagstrikesagain

You should consider becoming a dental consultant on the side....I'd pay good money for this kind of analysis. In fact, I think people pay thousands of dollars for a Scott Leune course for exactly this kind of information.

 

[Scumbag_Steve]

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[fancymylotus]

My advice will never come with a pricetag. **** shameless profiteering on knowledge that should be shared with everyone who wants to work hard and help people. You have the green light to kill me if I ever charge a dime for advice. Or at least tell me I'm a terrible person

You're a terrible person


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile app

 

[Scumbag_Steve]

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[Incis0r]

My advice will never come with a pricetag. **** shameless profiteering on knowledge that should be shared with everyone who wants to work hard and help people.