How long it takes to sell a dental practice in Texas

The short answer

I talk with sellers often, and each sale is a little different. For a good office in a good location, my estimate is: "All else equal, a good office in a good location will take about 3-6 months to sell to a private buyer. It may take a year or more to sell to a private equity backed company."

Those are my estimates, not a dataset. Doctors usually underestimate the complexity of a deal. They expect 2-4 months. Then contracts, negotiations and lending extend the timeline.

Published numbers differ from mine and from each other. I use three sources below. Henry Schein's practice transitions group is a broker, Heartland Dental is a dental group, and Dental & Medical Counsel is a law firm. Each describes its own work, so none of them is neutral research. None of them is specific to Texas either, and I found no Texas timing source.

I have a stake too. DPC, the Texas brokerage that publishes this site, is paid 5% of the sale price at closing, and nothing before. Weigh my numbers with that in mind.

How long it takes to sell a dental practice, phase by phase

Henry Schein's practice transitions group, a broker, writes that the active sale process "may take 6–12 months from valuation and buyer sourcing through due diligence and closing". It puts preparation before that clock starts, at 12 to 24 months before the sale. Heartland Dental gives a shorter preparation window: 12 to 18 months out is when to "start to organize all of the relevant paperwork".

Henry Schein's table lists pre-sale readiness, then breaks the active sale into phases:

The table gives no range for closing.

DPC runs a sale in five steps: get your number, talk it through, market it quietly, offers to a signed letter of intent, and diligence to closing. How a DPC sale runs is laid out on one page. I attach no durations to those steps. None of the three sources gives ranges for them, and my own estimates are for whole sales. The lease and the building stay with your attorney.

What stalls a sale

Henry Schein lists what causes delay: "documentation gaps, valuation expectations are misaligned, buyer fit is difficult, financing takes longer than expected, legal issues arise, or the seller is uncertain about their post-closing role." It also says that "a compressed timeline usually gives the seller less control."

Price expectations and documentation, two of those causes, have their own articles: how the valuation formula works and how buyers test add-backs. DPC also offers a free valuation, a range of value from six numbers or an uploaded P&L, to test price expectations against. It is an estimate of value. It says nothing about timing.

Heartland points at the calendar: "If you drag your feet in scheduling the appraisal, this can hold up the process." The law firm Dental & Medical Counsel points at the records: "Incomplete or inconsistent financial data can scare away buyers or create delays in the appraisal process."

Complete records work the other way. Dental & Medical Counsel writes: "Detailed financial data instills confidence and speeds up due diligence."

Henry Schein already lists financing among its causes. I name lending specifically. The lending process can stall or stop a sale. Lenders want to verify the cash flows of a business through a process called Quality of Earnings, or QofE. If the seller and buyer are committed, the delay itself has no material cost. But other variables can change in the meantime: interest rates, production, expenses, or other unforeseen events.

I don't reconcile these lists, and I rank none of them. They meet in one place. A lender verifying cash flows reads the same financial records the sources say to keep complete and consistent.

On what helps, I think the best thing a seller can do is to clean up their books, document their operations, and bulletproof their practice. If they do that, they'll get a higher value, and they may even decide not to sell. That is my view, not a measured result. I am not saying it shortens the sale.

A worked example: a general office on the published ranges

This is a representative general practice, not a real sale. I add Henry Schein's phase ranges. I take 1 month as 4.33 weeks and "approximately 30 days" as 1 month. Closing has no published range, so it is excluded. Preparation comes before this clock, so it is excluded too.

The sum is about 3.2 to 10 months. Henry Schein's headline is 6 to 12 months. I don't know the reason for the gap, and I won't guess at it. The table shows no gaps between phases.

My own estimate for a good office in a good location selling to a private buyer, 3 to 6 months, sits at the low end of the sum and below the headline. I have not reconciled the three figures.

The phases add, so any phase that runs longer, including financing, moves the total by the same amount.

Where this breaks

• The sources have a stake. A broker, a dental group and a law firm describe their own process. I cite them for their ranges and quotes, not as neutral data.
• My numbers are estimates. They come from talking with sellers often. They are not measured data.
• I found no Texas timing source. None of the three sources is specific to Texas. I make no claim that a Texas sale is faster or slower than one elsewhere.
• The type of sale changes the answer. Published timelines vary widely. The advice isn't wrong, it's too broad. A liquidation asset sale can take one month. A strategic sale of a multi-office platform can take years. Dental & Medical Counsel writes that "Some sales close quickly in a few months, while others can stretch out to a year or more due to negotiations, financing, or unforeseen issues." One number cannot cover all of these.
• My own two answers differ in scope. For a good office selling to a private buyer, I said 3-6 months. Across goals, my short answer is: "as short as 6 months and as long as a year and half. It all depends on your goals." I have not reconciled the two.
• The table and my warning point in different directions. The table gives due diligence and financing about 30 days. I say lending can stall or stop a sale.
• A shorter timeline costs control. Henry Schein says a compressed timeline usually gives the seller less control.
• The lease sits outside all of this. Your attorney handles the lease and the building.

Who runs these phases is a separate question. What a Texas dental practice broker does and how to check one covers it.

What to do this month

1. Decide which kind of sale you want. A liquidation asset sale, a sale to a private buyer, and a sale to a private equity backed company run on different calendars. Your goals set the answer to "how long".
2. Check your own records. Are the financial statements complete and consistent? Is the way the practice runs written down? You can do this without a broker or a tool.
3. Count backward from the date you want to be done. Henry Schein puts readiness at 12 to 24 months before the sale and the active sale at 6 to 12 months. Added together, that is roughly 18 to 36 months. Heartland says to start organizing paperwork 12 to 18 months out, which sits inside that span.

The answer is a range. My estimate is about 3 to 6 months for a good office selling to a private buyer, and a year or more to a private equity backed company. Henry Schein publishes 6 to 12 months for the active sale, after 12 to 24 months of preparation. Pick the sale type first, then count backward.