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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
A two-chair family practice in Moonah or a multi-surgery group in Sandy Bay: valued on what the surgeries will keep earning under a new owner, with sales per surgery used to test that figure, not to produce it.
A Hobart dental practice is valued by capitalising the earnings it can sustain after the principal dentist is paid a market wage for the clinical days they work. One-off items are removed first. Sales of comparable practices, measured per surgery, test the result, and chairs, imaging and fit-out at market value set the floor.
Most requests arrive as ownership is about to shift. An associate at a two-surgery practice in North Hobart wants to buy half, and both sides need a figure they can trust. A principal in Kingston is retiring and selling to the dentist who has run the practice's hygiene days for years, a familiar route in a city where succession often happens inside the business.
Other triggers are legal or financial. Separating spouses need the practice valued at a fixed date for a property settlement in the Hobart registry of the Federal Circuit and Family Court. A lender wants a valuation before refinancing the fit-out of a new surgery in Bellerive, or the practice is moving into a company and the ATO will expect the transfer at market value.
Some owners ask years ahead of any sale, to learn which levers actually move the figure. Busy chairs, a hygiene and therapy team that produces its own fees, a healthy share of higher-value treatment and a patient list that is not tied to you personally all add value, and each can be built up over time.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
The Income Approach leads. Patients in a settled practice come back for recalls and treatment year after year, giving earnings regular enough to capitalise. Buyers think the same way: they pay for what the surgeries will go on producing, not for what the equipment cost.
The method is usually capitalisation of future maintainable earnings. We derive a sustainable figure from three to five years of normalised results and divide it by a rate that reflects how likely that income is to survive a change of owner.
A discounted cash flow suits a practice in the middle of a change: a new surgery being fitted out in Glenorchy, an associate being recruited to take over the principal's list, or a round of chair and imaging replacement due within the forecast. A DCF shows each of those in the year it happens, which one multiple cannot.
Comparable sales, expressed as an earnings multiple or a value per surgery, show whether the income result is where similar practices have actually traded. Where closely matched Hobart sales are few, we draw on evidence from elsewhere in Tasmania and from comparable regional markets, adjusted for the differences, and treat a rule of thumb based on gross fees as no more than a cross-check.
Chairs, OPG and intraoral imaging, sterilisation equipment and the fit-out are restated to what they would sell for now, not their written-down book value. Equipment written off in the accounts can still have a resale price, and the combined market value of the surgery's assets is the lowest figure the conclusion can sensibly reach.
Normalisation is where most valuation disagreements start, so we put every adjustment and its reason in the body of the report rather than an appendix. In dental practices these come up repeatedly:
Hobart's dental market falls into a few distinct groups, and each affects value differently. Specialist and referral practices sit mainly in the CBD, where most patients come by referral and rents are higher. Long-established family practices in Sandy Bay, North Hobart and Moonah often have patients who have stayed for decades.
Newer and expanding practices follow housing growth into Kingston and the eastern shore suburbs of Bellerive, Rosny Park and Cambridge. Practices in the Huon Valley and New Norfolk serve wider catchments, where a departing dentist can be hard to replace, and a buyer weighs that.
So the suburb shapes the comparable set more than the chair count does. Registration is national, through Ahpra and the Dental Board of Australia, so it works the same way in Tasmania. Premises are where practices differ: when the principal owns the rooms through a super fund or family trust, the rent in the accounts is rarely a market rent, and the practice and the property are separated before either is valued.
The health sector keeps growing. Australia had 227,702 actively trading health care and social assistance businesses at 30 June 2026, 6.7 per cent more than a year earlier, and Tasmania gained a net 850 businesses across all industries over the same year (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, July 2022 to June 2026, released 18 August 2026). A bigger pool of practices produces more sales to compare against, and buyers compete hardest for practices with several clinicians and a lease that runs well past settlement.
Each report opens with the purpose, the standard of value, the valuation date and the information relied on, and it states the limits of that information. It then records every approach considered and the method chosen under each, lists the normalisation adjustments with reasons, and reconciles the results into a range with the weighting described in words.
When the figure is challenged, the reconciliation is where the argument is won or lost. In the Supreme Court of Tasmania, expert opinion evidence is dealt with under Part 19 of the Supreme Court Rules 2000, and a report that cannot explain why the income approach was preferred, or why the multiple sits where it does, will not survive a second expert. A family law matter at the Hobart registry of the Federal Circuit and Family Court tests the same reasoning.
Our reports are prepared under APESB, APES 225 Valuation Services and signed by a certified valuer who will explain and defend the conclusion, whether to the other side's expert, a mediator or the court.
Ask the valuer to point to the single figure in your report they would least like to defend, and then to defend it. A clear, immediate answer is the best sign the analysis is complete.
An Indicative valuation is a sensible starting point when you want your own figure before talking to an associate or answering a buyer. It is for internal decision-making and is not written for third party reliance. A Summary report suits an associate buy-in, a new partner or a finance application, while a Detailed report is the level for a family law property settlement, a dispute between principals or any matter where another expert will review the work.
Let the reader decide the depth. If a court, a lender, the ATO or a second expert is likely to test the opinion, choose the fuller report.
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.