It depends on how much you (and your spouse) make and the selling price of the practice (and the house) you want to buy. Three months after graduation, we bought our first house for $380k. My wife and I owed $450k in student loans. Our initial income (both of our salaries combined) was in the low $300k. And 6 months later, we took out another $120k loan ($90k for a practice + $30k working capital) to buy a run-down practice from a 71yo periodontist for my wife. With massive debt amount, we could only afford to buy such small office. To make it more efficiently run, my wife cut down the number of office days from 5 days/wk down to 3 days/wk by booking as many patients in one day as possible. She did all the cleanings herself, instead of paying the hygienist. And for the other extra days in the week, she traveled to work at other GP offices to supplement her income.
Four years later, I set up my 1300 square foot ortho office from scratch for $125k. I took out a $75k business loan + $50k was from my own saving. At that time, we also upgraded to a bigger $992k house. I didn’t want a lifestyle downgrade so I kept my full time 22 days/month associate job at the corp offices and worked at my newly built office on Saturdays and Sundays. We hired a live-in nanny to take care of our kids, who were still very little (under 3 yrs old), so we could both work 6-7 days/wk.
It’s much more expensive to build an office now. I think the new grad dentists should look at some of the abandoned dental and medical offices and hire a handyman to remodel them for much lower cost. Five years ago, I converted an existing medical office (I found it on loopnet.com) to an ortho office for $55k. I know an ortho, who has an office that doesn’t any underground plumbing….she just used a self-contained mobile cart…..the air and suction of the portable unit were strong enough for my friend, who is a perio, to perform canine exposure surgery at her office. One of my referring GPs built a partition inside her dad's pharmacy store and added 2 dental chairs in there. Patients don’t really care what equipment you have in your office. If you are a specialist, your success depends on the relationship you have with the referring GPs. As long as the office looks nice and clean, it’s good enough. New paint and new floor are inexpensive.
It helps a lot when you have dual income + stable associate jobs elsewhere to supplement your income.
different story if there are renters who are paying it for you
