Purchase
For a practice with stable providers, owning the building can beat renting it. We run both sets of numbers before you decide, and represent you on the purchase.
$0 out of pocket for most buyers. Buyer representation is typically paid from the sale commission.
Send us your lease Call (210) 384-2342Owning is not automatically better, and the honest answer depends on how long the practice will stay, how specialized the build-out is, and whether the down payment is better spent on the practice itself. What makes it worth checking is that the comparison is rarely close: either the numbers clearly favor owning, or they clearly do not.
An owner-user practice buying its own building can often do it with far less money down than a conventional commercial purchase requires, because the SBA-504 program exists for exactly this case. It has rules, including how much of the building you must occupy, and it takes longer to close. It also turns rent into equity in a building you control.
Find the candidates, including buildings that are not formally listed, price them against real comparable sales, and negotiate the contract. Buyer representation is typically paid out of the sale commission, so it generally costs a buyer nothing directly.
Both sets of numbers over the same holding period, including down payment, debt service, taxes, insurance, maintenance, and what the rent alternative would have cost over the same years.
The SBA-504 structure, occupancy requirements, timing, and what lenders will want from the practice's financials.
San Antonio has real inventory of small medical buildings and condo suites that suit a single practice, clustered around the Medical Center, Stone Oak and the hospital campuses on 1604. We find them, including the ones that are not formally listed.
For practices that cannot find the right building, a pad site or small tract with a build-to-suit. Longer, more expensive, and occasionally the only answer that works.
What This Costs Your Practice
It is in the listing agreement before you walk in.
You do not save it. Their broker keeps it.
For most practices, $0 and no invoice from us.
Same fee, two ways to split it. One of them puts a negotiator in your corner. The other does not.
A few situations differ, such as owner-direct, physician-owned and sublease space. We confirm the fee in writing on every building before you tour it. Brokerage fees are negotiable and not set by law.
Common Questions
It depends mostly on how long you will stay. Ownership tends to win for practices with a stable provider group and a long horizon, and lose for practices that might outgrow the space or change hands within a few years. We run both, and we will tell you when leasing wins.
Far less through an SBA-504 owner-user loan than through a conventional commercial mortgage, which is the main reason practices are able to buy at all. The exact figure depends on the lender, the building, and the practice's financials, so it is worth a conversation with a lender early rather than assuming the conventional number.
Sometimes. Landlords sell for their own reasons, and a sitting tenant with a good payment history is an easy buyer. Your lease may also contain a right of first refusal you have forgotten. It costs nothing to ask.
Both. Buyer representation is typically paid out of the sale commission.
Behind The Three Of Us
We are the San Antonio team of Partners Healthcare Services, the healthcare tenant and buyer representation practice of Partners Real Estate. The practice began in 2009 as Crown Tenant Advisors in Atlanta, joined Partners in July 2026, and holds a 5.0 rating across 109 Google reviews. Its brokers are on the ground in Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Indiana, and the healthcare case studies and client quotes on this site are the practice's.
Partners was founded in 1997, reports more than 300 professionals, and has offices in San Antonio, Austin, Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth and Atlanta. When your practice grows past San Antonio you keep us as the point of contact: Austin, Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth through Partners' own offices, and anywhere else through the best healthcare broker in that market, run by us.
We will run buy versus lease on your actual numbers and tell you which side wins.
Send us your lease Call (210) 384-2342