Shad Bogany is a broker-owner with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Gary Greene working in Houston.

Every week, we ask a real estate professional for their Short List, a collection of tips and recommendations on an essential topic in real estate. This week, we spoke with Shad Bogany, a broker-owner with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Gary Greene, who shared his strategies for working with move up homebuyers. 

4. The first step is to try and get them pre-approved. The reason this is so important is because a lot of move up homebuyers have been out of the market for a long time and things have changed so they might get sticker shy. Before your buyer puts their home on the market, help them determine what their purchasing power will be for a new home.

3. Show buyers what’s available in their purchasing area. Home sellers tend to compare everything back to what they already have. What happens is that they may have upgraded their current home, but they’d like to move in to a nicer neighborhood, whether that means better schools or nearby amenities. Unfortunately, those neighborhoods are going to cost more, and the new homes might not necessarily offer the upgrades they made to their old property. Before they list their home, take the buyer out and let the see what their options are going to be, so when the time comes to buy, they’re not shocked by what they see.

2. Before your move up homebuyer purchases their new home, you’re going to want to make sure to maximize the value of their current home. That means having the home inspected, making the proper repairs and then marketing that it’s been inspected, repaired and that the seller is willing to provide a home warranty. That will typically maximize the dollars, which will give the seller enough money to get the new home they want.

1. My final suggestion, is to make sure the yard is landscaped. Make the yard looks good, the hedges are trimmed and everything is manicured in order to further increase the listing price.

Shad Bogany is a top producing Houston agent with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Gary Greene, and has been selling homes in the area since 1984. He was also the Texas Association of Realtors 2013 Chairman of the Board.