Buying a Dental Practice in a Crowded Market vs an Underserved One
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Buying a dental practice in a crowded market vs an underserved one
Two practices with the same collections can be very different purchases. One sits in an area with an office on every corner. The other is one of a few practices serving a growing town. The first has to defend its patients. The second has room to grow.
The practice's own numbers will not tell you which one you are looking at. The market around it will.
How do you measure whether a market is crowded?
The simplest measure is residents per general dental practice: the number of people living in an area divided by the number of general practices there. The lower the number, the more offices are competing for each resident.
- The US average is about 3,850 residents per general practice.
- A common guideline is no fewer than 2,000 residents per general practice. Below that, competition is intense.
- Measure it around the practice, within a short drive, not just for the county. A county average can hide a crowded corridor and an empty one side by side.
Count practices from a list a person has checked. Online maps include closed offices, duplicates and listings that are not clinical practices, which can make an area look more crowded than it is.
For state figures, see dentists per capita by state. For metro detail, see our pages on markets such as Cleveland, Richmond and Pittsburgh.
Buying in a crowded market
Crowded markets are often crowded for good reasons: high incomes, dense population and strong demand. A practice can do well there, but its numbers are harder to grow.
What to check:
| Question | Why |
|---|---|
| Has new-patient flow held steady as offices opened nearby? | Shows whether the practice can defend its share |
| Did any offices open nearby in the last few years? | Past collections may not reflect the newest competition |
| What makes this practice different? | Specialty services, hours, reputation or insurance participation |
| Is the price based on history or on growth? | Growth is harder to find in a crowded market |
What it can mean for price: the practice's history is probably the best case, not the floor. Ask your appraiser how the valuation treats new-patient flow.
Buying in an underserved market
Underserved areas have more residents per office than average. A practice there may have room to grow beyond its history.
What to check:
| Question | Why |
|---|---|
| Why are there so few offices? | Low income, a shrinking population or a hard-to-staff location can all explain it |
| Is the population growing? | Growth turns room into real patients |
| What is the household income and payer mix nearby? | Shapes whether fee-for-service, PPO or Medicaid works |
| Can you hire staff there? | Rural and remote areas can be hard to staff |
| Is a new competitor likely to open soon? | Open markets attract other buyers and startups |
What it can mean for price: the history may understate what is possible, but check whether the seller is already pricing in growth you would be paying for.
Where are other dentists already looking?
Some markets look open on paper but are about to fill. On our metro pages we compare residents per practice with how much research dentists have done on each area on Dentagraphics over the past year. Areas that are both open and heavily researched tend to fill in. Areas with room and little attention are where a buyer may face less competition.
Frequently asked questions
Is it a bad idea to buy a practice in a crowded area? Not necessarily. Crowded areas often have strong demand. The risk is paying for growth that the market cannot support.
What is a good number of residents per dental practice? There is no single right number. Compare the area around the practice with its county, its metro and the US average of about 3,850, and look at income and growth alongside it.
Where can I see residents per practice for an area? Dentagraphics shows residents per general practice for every state and county on the free plan, and for any address or drawn area with a membership.
How Dentagraphics helps
- Free plan: state and county residents per practice, income and growth.
- Start/Buy membership ($149 per month): unlimited address and area searches, so you can measure saturation around any practice, plus listings from many brokers in one place.
- Single-Site Study ($695) or Area Analysis ($745): handwritten analysis by a demographer of one practice's market, or several compared.
Our competition data covers 118,330 US dental practices verified by hand. We do not broker practices and hold no stake in any location.
Want to see how crowded the area around a practice is? See a free sample report, or create a free account to look up residents per practice for its county today.