Liberal candidate campaigning on housing affordability bought or sold at least 30 B.C. properties over the last decade

Vancouver -

The Liberal candidate campaigning for Parliament on a promise to make housing more affordable has bought or sold at least 30 residential properties in the past decade, with roughly half of those being offloaded within 12 months of their purchase date.

Publicly available property records from B.C. Assessment, independently obtained and verified by CTV News, show Taleeb Noormohamed, who is seeking to reclaim the Vancouver Granville seat for the Liberals, waiting, in one case, as little as 107 days between his purchase and sale.

As part of the party’s election platform, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised to slap an additional “anti-flipping” tax on speculators who buy and sell properties within the span of a year.

Data shows at least 14 of the properties Noormohamed owned and sold between 2011 and 2021, all located in Vancouver, North Vancouver, and West Vancouver, would fit that criteria.

One example is a two-bedroom loft in Vancouver West End that records show Noormohamed purchased in May 2018 for $800,000.

Those records show he held it for 217 days before selling it in December for $1,002,500, a price jump of over 25 per cent.

It’s unclear what type of improvements or renovations Noormohamed completed on that particular condo, or any of the others.

The candidate declined CTV News Vancouver's request for an interview and instead sent a statement, which said he was “fully committed to making housing more affordable across Canada.”

Noormohamed, a tech CEO who ran and lost to independent Jody Wilson-Raybould in the 2019 federal election, went on to write: “While I have had business activities improving homes, I have been consistent in my support for measures to make housing more affordable, and as the MP for Vancouver Granville, it will remain a priority.”

His campaign declined to answer further questions about the purpose behind Noormohamed’s property purchases or how much he personally profited from their sales.

Noormohamed’s most recent sales include a two-bedroom condo near Science World he held for 202 days, before selling it in Feb. 2021 for 15 per cent more than the purchase price.

Records show he also sold a six-bedroom, four-bath home in West Vancouver in January for $3,175,000, a jump of 32 per cent over the purchase price.

In that case, publicly available data shows the property was purchased more than three years earlier, in September 2017.

The Vancouver Granville candidate for the NDP, which was circulating its own list of Noormohamed’s property sales history to reporters on Monday, called the practice “predatory."

“The fact that what Taleeb Noormohamed did was legal is part of the problem,” Vancouver Granville NDP candidate Anjali Appadurai said.

“And that’s part of what the NDP is committed to crack down on in closing those tax loopholes.”

Appadurai pointed out to reporters that she is a renter, and in the years Noormohamed has bought and sold dozens of residential property, she hasn’t owned any.

“Housing is a human right and homes are for living in,” Appadurai said.

”The current system is broken because money begets money and it’s us working people who pay the price,” she added

The Conservative candidate, Kailin Che, called it “extremely hypocritical of this Trudeau Liberal candidate to have taken part in the practice of flipping homes while Justin Trudeau is campaigning against it.”

“If elected, a Conservative government will introduce policies that will increase supply, sell government-owned real estate, and make housing a more attainable goal for individuals and families,” Che added.

According to records, Noormohamed currently owns five properties in B.C., all in the city of Vancouver, and purchased between 2015 and 2021.