Brokerage Liaison Talks Influence of Demographics on Real Estate Strategies

Brokerage liaison Brandy Keck of Carr Healthcare Realty, a firm that specializes in selling and buying real estate for medical professionals, knows a thing or two about demographics. Keck sat down with Dentist’s Money Digest® at the Yankee Dental Congress to provide insight on how Carr recommends real estate purchases to dental clients. It makes sense, she said for generalist and specialists to come together if patients can be referred back and forth.

Interview Transcript (Modified for Readability)

"As far as where dentists are going right now, a lot of the dentists that we work with prefer to work with a demographics firm to really understand the market. And depending on their specialty and the demographics company that you’re using, you may have anywhere from a population of 1,400 to 2,000 people per dentist in a given area. So, when you’re looking at those numbers, they’re really trying to figure out where there’s a hole in the need for dentistry right now. The other thing they have to consider is a growing market — if there’s a market that’s booming right now, and a lot of population moving into an area, there’s going to be a need for dentists coming up. So, we usually want them to have some level of either a consultant or a demographics firm that they’re working with that can help kind of drive those numbers. Again, it’s a little different when you’re talking about an orthodontist versus an endo versus a general dentist of what those numbers per dentist look like. But they try to make those numbers work and they try to make it fit within what a given area can handle in terms of number of dentists.

It can make a lot of sense for two physicians to come within close proximity to one another if they can refer patients back and forth. So, you may see a physician group much closer together than you would, say, two dentists. In our world and Carr’s world, we really get to know the market as much as we can, especially in the dental world, so we want to know where all the dentists are and where all the trends are. There are times when we will have an ortho come to us and say, 'We really want to be located near a general dentist.' It may make sense for those two practices to be side by side because they can refer dentists back and forth. You see that there are far less dentists than there are physicians, so the number of times that’s happening happens a little more on the medical side than it does in the dental world. But we try that as much as we can: If there are there are two specialists, or a generalist and a specialist that would make sense to have in the same area, we’re telling the clients, 'Hey, take a look at this property, this may be a good feeder system back and forth.'