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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
From a one-chair surgery in Prospect to a five-surgery group in Glenelg, the value comes from what the chairs reliably produce. Sales per surgery are used to test that answer, never to supply it.
An Adelaide dental practice is valued on its future maintainable earnings. We replace what the principal draws with a market wage for the clinical days they work, take out one-off items, and capitalise what remains. Sales of similar practices, expressed per surgery, check that result, while chairs, imaging and fit-out at current market value form the floor.
The usual trigger is a change of hands. An associate in a two-surgery practice in Unley is ready to buy half the business, and both dentists want a price they can rely on. A corporate group has approached an orthodontic practice in the East End. A principal in Tea Tree Gully is stepping back after a long career and selling to the associate who has carried the recall book for years. A separating couple needs the practice valued at a set date for a property settlement before the Federal Circuit and Family Court in Adelaide. A bank wants an opinion before refinancing a new surgery in the northern suburbs. Or the practice is moving into a new entity and the transfer has to be at a market value the ATO will accept.
Plenty of South Australian principals also ask for a valuation years ahead of any sale, because it shows which parts of the practice move the price. How full the chairs are, how much of the fee base comes from hygienists and oral health therapists, the split between routine and more complex treatment, and how much of the book would walk out with the principal all change the figure, and each can be worked on before a buyer arrives.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
The Income Approach leads. Patients who come back for recalls and further treatment every year give a practice earnings steady enough to capitalise, and an Adelaide purchaser thinks the same way: they pay for what the surgeries will keep producing, not for what the equipment cost.
Where the practice is in the middle of a change, a discounted cash flow takes over. A new surgery being fitted out in Mawson Lakes, an associate being brought in to absorb the principal's book, or chairs and imaging due for replacement inside the forecast period can each be shown in their own year in a DCF, which one multiple cannot capture.
Otherwise the method is the capitalisation of future maintainable earnings. Three to five years of normalised results give a sustainable earnings figure, which is divided by a capitalisation rate reflecting how likely that income is to survive a new owner.
Sales of comparable practices, shown as an earnings multiple or a price per surgery, tell us whether the earnings result fits what similar South Australian practices have changed hands for. A broker's percentage of gross fees is only a rough check, since it says nothing about the profit or risk that set two equally sized practices apart.
Dental chairs, OPG and intraoral imaging, steriliser and fit-out are valued at today's selling price rather than written-down value. A chair written off years ago can still be sold, and the combined value of these assets sets the minimum beneath the conclusion.
The normalisation schedule is where valuers most often diverge, so each adjustment sits in the body of the report with its explanation rather than in an appendix. For dental practices the regular ones are:
Dentistry in and around Adelaide falls into a few distinct markets, and each carries its own value drivers. Specialist and referral practices concentrate in the CBD, particularly the East End, and in North Adelaide, where rents are higher and most new patients come by referral. Long-standing general practices in the eastern and inner southern suburbs, such as Burnside, Norwood, Unley and Glenelg, tend to run several surgeries from long leases with patients who have attended for decades. Practices in Adelaide Hills and wine region towns, around Mount Barker, the Barossa and McLaren Vale, see similar loyalty with fewer competitors in each catchment. The northern suburbs around Salisbury, Elizabeth and Mawson Lakes, and the outer south, are where new practices open and where corporate groups buy to add scale.
That is why location matters more to the comparable set than the number of chairs. A three-surgery practice in Elizabeth and another in Burnside can bill similar fees and still warrant different capitalisation rates, because population growth, the number of dentists nearby, rent and reliance on one practitioner are not the same. Registration runs nationally through Ahpra and the Dental Board of Australia, so it is identical in South Australia. Premises are where arrangements differ: if the principal owns the rooms through an SMSF or family trust, the rent in the accounts is rarely a market rent, and the property and the practice have to be pulled apart before either is valued.
The sector is still expanding. The national count of health care and social assistance businesses grew 6.7 per cent over 2025 to 2026, and South Australia added a net 5,613 actively trading businesses across all industries that year, taking the state to 174,310 (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, July 2022 to June 2026, released 18 August 2026). More practices mean more sales evidence, and more buyers chasing practices with several clinicians and a long lease.
The opening pages state the purpose of the valuation, the standard of value, the valuation date and what information we relied on, along with its limits. The report then lists every approach considered and the method used under each, sets out every earnings adjustment with its reason, and brings the results together into a range with the weighting explained in plain words.
Under challenge, that reconciliation carries the opinion. A report that cannot say why earnings were preferred to sales evidence, or why the multiple sits where it does within the comparable range, will not survive a second expert in the Supreme Court of South Australia, where the court's expert evidence rules apply, or a joint conference of experts in a property settlement before the Federal Circuit and Family Court in Adelaide. We prepare every report under APESB, APES 225 Valuation Services, and a certified valuer signs it and stands ready to explain and defend the conclusion.
Ask where an opposing expert would push hardest on your practice valuation, and how they would answer. If the reply takes a while to come, the analysis is not complete.
An Indicative valuation is a good place to start if you want your own figure before sitting down with an associate or answering a corporate group. It is for internal decision-making and is not written for third party reliance. A Summary report fits an associate buy-in, a new partner joining or a lending application. A Detailed report is needed for a property settlement before the Federal Circuit and Family Court in Adelaide, a dispute between principals, or any case where another expert will go through the work.
Who will read the report sets its depth. The greater the chance that a judge, a bank, the ATO or an opposing valuer will test it, the more complete it must be.
For internal decision-making. Useful for testing an offer, setting an expectation before a negotiation, or deciding whether to go to market. It is not written for third party reliance.
Sets out the approaches applied, the normalisation adjustments made and the reasoning behind the conclusion. The usual choice for a sale, an ownership change or a finance application.
Applies and reconciles all relevant approaches in full. The level required where a court, the ATO, a lender or another expert will review the opinion.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.