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Why Convert a House into a Dental Office?

DrSkibaInt

 

Especially When Commercial Space Is So Efficient

Many times it appears to be less expensive to convert an old home in a residential area to use for a dental office, but there are some costly issues to consider before moving forward with your purchase agreement. Below we present a few challenges that may leave you wondering if converting a home is the best choice for your practice.

Zoning

When looking for a home to use as a dental office, it may need to be rezoned for business use. This means that paperwork, meetings and permission needs to be sought outside of your regular job duties. Or additional expense of hiring a professional to take care of rezoning. A commercial building would eliminate the time and expense of this exercise.

Parking

While most dental offices don’t require many parking spaces, a traditional residential driveway doesn’t allow much room for staff and patients to maneuver easily. Additionally, seeking site plan approval for a parking lot in a residential area can be a risk that doesn’t always end in the owner’s favor.

Maintenance and Daily Use

Often times, an older/historical house with more interesting or intricate details makes for a desirable aesthetic with personality, however, an older home also comes with a lot of maintenance issues as they age. To overcome the age and need for maintenance, a major overhaul of the house can be as costly as or even more expensive than choosing a commercial property or building. Additional concerns for renovating a house include structural issues associated with moving walls and plumbing to accommodate cleaning and treatment rooms.

Resources to Obtain a Suitable Building

Having adequate space that was designed for patient flow will help your staff to be more efficient. There are programs that make a commercial building or even building your own office from scratch more affordable. Dentists in Michigan are prime candidates for the Small Business Association’s 504 Loan program. The program allows qualified business owners to finance 90% of their construction and building needs. Additionally, dentists are a good fit for a leaseback project, where a developer builds an office to the doctor’s specifications and then leases it back to the doctor. We would be able to steer you through this process, contact us if you’re interested in learning more about it.

So, why convert a house into a dental office? We aren’t sure either, that’s why we encourage Dentists to consider the four points above, and then call the SBA and Wolgast to prepare your new space in a commercial building.

 

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