The Addis Ababa Land Development and Administration Bureau is putting more than 300 plots located across the city up for auction. It will be the second time the City Administration, led by Mayor Adanech Abiebie, will be accepting bids for land since October 2024, when it sold off another batch of approximately 300 plots.
The latest auction will open on Monday, March 10, 2025, and will remain open for nearly two weeks. Bureau officials say the plots up for sale are spread across all of Addis Ababa’s sub-cities.
This marks the fifth time the Administration is organizing a land auction following a several years-long pause on bidding. The constitution dictates that private developers can access land through auctions.
The last round of bidding saw a plot in Nifas Silk-Lafto Sub-city go for a staggering 306,600 birr per square meter. A company by the name of Ewket Trading Plc made the offer for the 1,475 square meter plot, bringing the total price to close to half a billion birr.
Ewket reportedly paid 40 percent of the total (184 million birr) up front, beating out Edola Asfaw and Amangar Property SC, which offered 102,000 and 91,000 birr per square meter, respectively. The latter two had also offered to pay the entire sum up front, but the City Administration opted to sell to Ewket.
Ewket’s offer was not far off from the 355,000 birr per square meter put up by a bidder during a different auction a few years ago.
Approximately 210 individuals and businesses acquired land during the auction in November, with winning bidders offering between 10,000 birr and 306,600 birr per square meter. Dozens of substantial plots were sold off in the Akaki, Lemi Kura, Nifas Silk-Lafto and Kolfe sub-cities.
However, the Administration offered only a few properties in prime areas such as Bole, Kirkos, and Addis Ketema.
