Case Studies

A Building Purchase To Expand An Independent Medical Practice In Clarkston, Oakland County

The Situation

We first worked with Dr. Eric Succar and Dr. Marwan Boulis several years ago when they were considering buying a medical office condo for their ENT practice in Waterford. However, they decided to lease a space instead.

We helped them compare both paths honestly, and at the time they valued flexibility more than ownership. Our job wasn’t to steer them toward the bigger transaction, but it was to make sure they could see the tradeoffs clearly and pick the situation that fit the practice they had at the time.

This is worth mentioning, because it cuts against what people assume about commercial real estate brokers. Ownership is not automatically the answer. Sometimes the answer is to stay flexible, keep your capital in the practice, and buy when the growth justifies it later on.

Meanwhile, we stayed in touch and helped the doctors lease another location for their practice to expand in Rochester Hills, and that office opened in 2025.

Their practice was growing fast, and later that year, they wanted to revisit their long-term goal of property ownership. They still wanted to buy a building.

• We found an 11,000 SF building in Clarkston with a finished exterior, but the inside was a shell. It was a blank canvas, which for a specialty practice with specific procedural requirements, is close to ideal. You’re not paying to demolish someone else’s layout. 
• The building was perfect in every way, except one big problem. Even though it had been on the market for a while, it was under contract with another buyer. 
• Most people stop there. If the listing says pending, the assumption is that the building is spoken for. But that reflex can be an expensive habit for buyers. A meaningful share of deals under contract never close for a number of reasons:
  • Financing falls through,
  • The inspection reports something the buyer won’t absorb,
  • The environmental report comes back ugly,
  • The buyer’s timeline changes,
  • Partners disagree, or
  • Somebody gets cold feet in week three of due diligence
• None of these factors are visible from the outside. All you can see is the status change on the listing, but beneath the surface, the transaction could actually quietly be coming apart.

The Solution

• We did two things simultaneously:
  • We stayed close to the building and watched the timeline. We wanted to ensure that if it came back on the market, we’d hear about it early, rather than learning about it alongside everyone else.
  • We also kept hunting for other properties, because hoping a contract will collapse is not a strategy, and you should never build a plan around someone else. 
• And that’s when it happened. The building came back on the market, and we moved on it immediately. That’s the whole lesson. We didn’t get the building through brilliant negotiation, but it was won by not crossing it off the list. 
• Our work wasn’t finished yet though. The building was 11,000 SF, and the doctors only needed to occupy half. It sounds like a nice problem – extra space, room to grow, future flexibility – but the lender does not see it that way. 
• When you buy more building than you can occupy, the vacant portion becomes an underwriting question. The lender wants to know who pays for that space. A half-empty building is carrying a cost with no income attached, and having a plan for it can be the difference between a loan that clears and one that doesn’t. 
• So with the surplus space not being a bonus you figure out later, our job was to find a second tenant to make the financing work. But here’s the honest ending – we never found them. Dr. Succar and Dr. Boulis did. 
• The doctors had deep connections in the healthcare world, and at the eleventh hour, they brought a partner to the table themselves. It solved the underwriting dilemma, satisfied the lender, and saved the deal. We’ll take zero credit for that one.

Now in 2026, the two physicians are under construction at their 11,000 SF building that they own in Clarkston.

• The building’s shell interior allows them to design around their exact clinical workflow with no demo cost.
• Once complete, the additional location will continue the growth of their practice.
• All while, their new tenant will cover the balance of the building to stretch the financing.

Congratulations, Dr. Succar and Dr. Boulis!

Leasing space was the right move then, and buying space is the right move now. We’re happy the doctors have now achieved their long-term goal of property ownership with equity in a building of their own.

Their story shows that transactions fall apart constantly, so if your first choice is under contract, keep looking, but stay close.

And as it was in this case, your network can actually be part of your real estate strategy. Their building couldn’t have closed without the relationships they had with other healthcare providers in the community.