Meet Toronto’s only psychic licensed realtor

“I’m wondering if the owner suffered from dementia, because my head feels really light, kind of spacey,” he says. The house, he feels, was a beloved haven for its former inhabitant, and Medina suspects the spirit has attachment issues.

Sensing the presence, Medina calls in his spiritual team — guardian and ancestral spirits and spiritual gatekeepers he says will help him uncover hidden portals and communicate with energies that haven’t passed on. Eyes closed, he recites a chant, quickly and unintelligibly, and his team gets to work on behalf of his client, who has hired him as their realtor to view and do an energy reading of the property.

In this case, the news is discomforting: his team tells him that the spirit won’t easily relinquish the home, listed just days before for a cool $1.3 million. But there’s no reason to be disheartened, Medina says.

“I would leave (the spirit) as is,” he says, “and if (the client) decides to purchase, then I would go ahead and clear this for them.”

With prospective Toronto homebuyers becoming increasingly cautious and patient in a cooling housing market, across the city, real estate agents and brokerages are rethinking their strategies to attract clients and stand out from the crowd. Some have shifted their focus to things like green homes for the climate conscious, or analytics-based services for data lovers.

Then, there’s Medina, one of a handful of realtors across North America who are now providing real estate services with a mystical touch. Known to his growing base of Instagram followers as psychicrealtor_larry, Toronto’s only self-proclaimed psychic licensed realtor says his services are designed to “help people navigate the real estate market through a psychic lens.”

Not everyone believes in psychic abilities or paranormal activity and there’s no scientific evidence that either exist. So not surprisingly, some in the real estate industry see Medina’s approach as nothing more than a marketing ploy. But Medina, who doesn’t charge extra for any of his psychic services in his real estate practice, simply sees his gifts as a bonus for buyers.

“Clients hire me because they want to know not only the layout of the house, they want to know what’s lurking,” he says.

Medina, now 43, says he first realized something unusual was happening to him when he was five years old. He’d get awoken at night by spirits seeking his help. His Catholic parents were not impressed. “They were like, ‘Oh, interesting, let’s pray for you,’ or something,” he says. “But it didn’t stop. I stopped it myself. I didn’t want anything to do with it.”

For most of his youth and well into adulthood, Medina ignored his abilities. At 15, he dipped into the occult, exploring Wicca, but ultimately couldn’t relate to the pagan belief system.

Then came a life-changing encounter: He was 32, enjoying a night with friends at a party hosted by his brother. Across the room, he’d caught the eye of a stranger, a medium who approached him, brimming with recognition. She urged him not to neglect his abilities. Shortly after that chance meeting, Medina enrolled at a local psychic school where, for a year, he honed his skills.

He also became a realtor. For three years he kept his psychic skills separate from his work. But in the summer of 2022, during a property showing with a client, he had an unexpected visitor — the spirit of a child, Medina says, who had a message it wanted to share with his client. “I’m like, ‘Not now, I’m working’ — it was so crazy,” Medina says, his eyes alight.

But the client, intrigued, asked to hear the message, so Medina obliged. “What else are you gonna do in that situation,” says Medina with a shrug.

The life-altering message was one the client had longed to hear for years, and though she didn’t buy the house, she later reached out to Medina to express her gratitude. She has been referring her friends to Medina ever since.

That’s when Medina says he realized that there was a demand for his psychic abilities. In February, he changed his social media handle — declaring himself the psychic realtor.

“Hello, all you beautiful souls,” says Medina cheerfully in one of his first Instagram reels. “I guide my clients around a home that is completely aligned with them by tuning in to their energy.” In addition to conventional realtor services, such as valuation, pricing and brokering the best possible deal, he outlines his skills: channelling messages clients need to hear, tuning in to the energetic quality of properties, and cleansing spaces of discordant energy and spirits in need of transition.

“Most importantly, guys, I empower my clients and strengthen their self-trust,” so they are confident about their decision, he says.

On a Wednesday in late fall, Medina walks into a condo for sale near Wellesley station to do an energetic assessment of the building for his Instagram. It’s something he does often with well-known Toronto condo buildings for his 1,270 followers. Of this particular building, he says, “definitely a lot of anxious energy in this building. Anxious and claustrophobic.”

Not all of his clients are spiritual or superstitious, though most do want to know if something traumatic has occurred in the space, says Medina. Some buyers consider this a useful skill, as sellers and agents in Ontario are not required by law to disclose if a death has occurred on the property.

Reactions to his claimed abilities run the gamut; from the good to the bad to the brutal. Some of his real estate peers taunt him with derogatory names, using words like fraud and fake. He’s well aware not everyone will approve of his chosen path; he sees the backlash as indicative of where the critics are in their own spiritual journey.

But there are those who swear by his services. Client Jill Schoenhofer, a real estate investor, says Medina offers something unique when it comes to assessing properties.

“He is very knowledgeable (about the housing market), and intuitive. I have never worked with a realtor who has this other skill set that he has, where he can physically walk in and sense if the energy is bad,” she says.

There could be many reasons for this negative energy: maybe the couple who lived there weren’t happily married, or maybe they simply didn’t like the building. Medina would pick up on it instantly, Schoenhofer says. “No other realtor can do that, that I’ve worked with — and I’ve worked with quite a few.”

Schoenhofer is still looking for the right property to buy, regularly checking in with Medina to get the scoop on fresh listings.

Perhaps no one sings his praises quite like his boss, Stephanie King, an associate broker and manager at Toronto-based RARE Real Estate Inc., a brokerage that boasts a handful of realtors with unusual skills on its roster and which Medina joined in April.

“Larry is really a unique individual in all the best ways. He’s super fun, he’s super outgoing, but he knows what he’s talking about — and he does it in such a way that makes his clients feel at ease,” King says.

As for whether psychic services in real estate boost sales, there is no evidence that offering these services will enhance purchasing power, says Pauline Lierman, vice-president of market research at Zonda Urban, adding that with the spotlight on real estate in Canada — Toronto especially — unique offerings such as Medina’s will likely grow. “Brokers, they do have skin in the game and want to obviously get their closing commission,” she says. “But the psychic angle is something else altogether.”

John Pasalis, a real estate specialist and president of Toronto-based Realosophy Realty, while puzzled by the idea of a psychic realtor, says that RARE’s approach with Medina mirrors a standard niche marketing strategy. “What they’re doing is trying to connect to people who have shared values,” he says.

With so many realtors in Toronto, everybody’s trying to find an angle and get attention, says Brendan Powell, broker of record at bspoke Realty Inc., a local brokerage. “There’s the bicycle realtor — he does everything by bike, this super-green guy. I know a guy who’s a singing realtor, a trained singer and performer. And he really sings! That’s part of his brand,” he says.

The problem with the market right now, says Powell, is that times are so uncertain. There are changes happening within the industry, as well as high interest rates and other post-pandemic conditions that clients and brokers alike must navigate. “There’s unemployment, there’s wars in the world … If he really is a psychic and knows what’s coming down the pipe, then I’ll hire him,” Powell says, laughing.

“So the idea of a psychic realtor is hilariously well-timed and maybe that’s part of it, right?” he says.

While Medina says the addition of his psychic skills has been good for business, and that there’s no shortage of interested clients — the most valuable thing about being a psychic realtor is that he gets to stay true to himself.

“When I started, like, really started doing this, I got to choose who I worked with, and it became more of a happier place for both parties,” he says.

“Everybody feels, right? Sometimes a feeling is all it takes to decide, and I get to help clients with my gifts, which brings so much joy to what I’m doing,” he says.

That gratitude stays with him to the very end of every client experience; upon closing, he’ll throw in an aura cleanser — his own secret blend of essential oils — as a housewarming gift.

Filipa Pajevic is a fellow in global journalism at the University of Toronto. She is also a researcher and lecturer with a background in economic geography and urban studies. She holds a PhD in Urban Planning, Policy and Design from McGill University in Montreal and is based in Toronto.