Disposing of Unneeded Real Property

The federal real property portfolio is vast and diverse: It totals more than 3 billion square feet of space and has an estimated gross value in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, U.S. Postal Service, and General Services Administration hold the majority of federally owned and leased space. GAO first designated federal real property management as a high-risk area in January 2003 for several reasons, including agencies’ persistent practice of holding onto excess and underutilized property. Such property represents a lost opportunity to generate revenue for the government and is costly to maintain. After GAO’s high-risk designation, the President established a goal of disposing of $15 billion in unneeded assets by 2015. In April 2008, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) reported that agencies had disposed of more than $7 billion in unneeded property since 2004. Nonetheless, a challenge for the incoming administration will be to sustain this effort, particularly because agencies continue to face deep-rooted obstacles to disposing of unneeded property. For example, competing stakeholder interests—such as local resistance to giving up a federal presence—pose a barrier to disposal. Legal and budgetary limitations—such as funding needed to prepare property for disposal and some agencies’ inability to retain sales proceeds—are also barriers. OMB and agencies have not implemented GAO’s recommendation that these obstacles be addressed more directly.

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Federal Real Property: Progress Made Toward Addressing Problems, but Underlying Obstacles Continue to Hamper Reform

GAO-07-349, April 13, 2007

Summary (HTML)   Highlights Page (PDF)   Full Report (PDF, 89 pages)   Accessible Text   Recommendations (HTML)

Federal Real Property: Excess and Underutilized Property Is an Ongoing Problem

GAO-06-248T, February 6, 2006

Summary (HTML)   Highlights Page (PDF)   Full Report (PDF, 17 pages)   Accessible Text