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Practice Startup Success

Information Advice Encouragement

February 25, 2008 ISSN 1934-3248

If winter comes, can spring be far behind?

Percy Bysshe Shelley
English poet (1792 - 1822)

(For those of you in the Midwest, hang in there….)

In this issue:

Person-to-Person Loans, AKA “Banking 2.0”
Starting Without an Office
Office Leasing Trends - “Vanilla” turns to “Gray” and Office Condos Begin to Show Up

Person-to-Person Loans. The lending process has gone online in a big way over the past few years. There are new lending sites popping up all over, and you might want to check out one for your practice startup. Here are a couple to look at:

§ Prosper.com (www.prosper.com ) is a loan bidding site, where you put up your loan requirements and lenders bid on them. They say they have rates “as low as 7.70 percent,” which means these are loans to their highest credit rating borrowers. They do say if you don’t have good credit, get your credit rating up and come back later.

§ Virgin Money (www.virginmoney.com) is a little different. They facilitate loans between friends and family, by creating legal documents and coordinating payment schedules.

§ Lending Club (www.lendingclub.com ) uses social networking (FaceBook) to match borrowers and lenders.

All of these lending sites charge fairly high interest rates (up to 11 % or 12 %), so you aren’t going to get any deals here, but on the other hand, your rate will be determined to a large degree on your credit score. If you check out one of these sites, let me know about your experience.

Starting Without an Office. I was recently asked about the steps needed to start a practice without an office, by going to patient homes or having them come to yours. Read my answer in my StudentDCInteractive blog. http://studentdc.com/studentdc-blog/blog/2008/02/17/can-i-start-my-practice-without-an-office/

“Vanilla Box” vs. “Gray Box” Leases, and Office Condos. If you are looking for office space in a larger city, you may find that most new office spaces are “vanilla.” hat is, they have only bare walls, no interior walls, a bathroom (maybe), and that’s about it. In some communities (the Phoenix area, for example), you may find that most offices are “gray.” This is even more minimal, like gray concrete, with no interior walls at all. Building owners are reluctant to spend a lot of money on ‘build-out’ until they know what a tenant wants. And build-out can take many months; meanwhile, you can’t start into practice.

Another new trend in larger cities is the office “condo.” This concept is similar to a home condo, where you buy the space rather than leasing it, and you pay a maintenance charge for common maintenance. Of course, you have to pay for build-out in addition to “shell” cost, and if you decide to move your practice, you’re stuck with finding a new owner or tenant, or paying a real estate agent to do this. And if you have built-out for a practice, you may be limiting yourself to similar practices as potential buyers. Unless you are absolutely certain you’ll be in that office forever, avoid buying an office condo.

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Ask Dr. Jean Murray a question (email jean@dcpracticesuccess.com )
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