Guess it depends on what your goals are.

Fresh out you’ll be hamstrung by how much lenders will give you. I’ve read something like a max of 3-400k. That amount of money typically doesn’t buy a lot of practice…but at that point your career still has the training wheel on anyway.

If you wait even a year, assuming you show strong production in that time, lenders will fall all over themselves for your business.

I was looking for something to acquire a year after graduation and found nothing that met my needs (wanted to walked into $350k day one). The pandemic happened and I stayed and grew a little more in my associateship. Now I’m three years out and closing on an office next month. I’ve saved over $100k and borrowing $800k to do close to half a mil on pretty basic dentistry.

Ten times out of ten I’d choose my path of delayed (is it though?) ownership to achieve this level of predictable income for the remainder of my career, than the alternative of getting something small as a truly wet behind the ears dentist, and maybe or maybe not grow it over time.

Edit: Also, from a clinical perspective, I am starting to sleepwalk through resins, crowns, and more and more endo. There is something to be said about the having the dentistry down in order to give mental energy to managing your business and your team.