Subscribe to TRD Data to unlock this content
The federal government hasn’t managed to slash its office rent bill under President Donald Trump, but it has found another way to save some cash: selling off the buildings it owns.
Since the start of last year, the General Services Administration, which handles much of the federal government’s civilian property portfolio, has sold more than 125 federal properties totaling over 6.5 million square feet, generating $614 million in proceeds, the agency told The Real Deal.
From 2021 to 2024, the GSA averaged 80 dispositions a year, with average proceeds of $200 million, according to a GSA official familiar with the matter. This fiscal year, the administration plans to offload 100 projects with expected proceeds of $450 million.
The sales reflect a shift in how the government approaches its real estate portfolio. Faced with a nearly $26 billion maintenance bill — and the high cost of modernizing aging federal buildings — the GSA increasingly appears to view ownership as a liability, opting instead to dispose of underused assets while relying more heavily on leased space.
The strategy marks a departure from the early days of the Trump administration, when the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, aggressively targeted the GSA’s leases in an attempt to shrink government spending. Those efforts have produced relatively little reduction in the GSA’s rent bill, leaving the agency to focus instead on unloading buildings that have become too costly to maintain.
GSA says it has been working to rightsize its footprint while providing modern workplaces for federal employees.
As of June, the GSA owns more than 8,100 properties that span more than 360.4 million rentable square feet. Texas has the most buildings, nearly 780, followed by California, with almost 690, according to a TRD Data analysis of GSA data.
Subscribe to TRD Data to unlock this content
The focus on selling is a reversal from prior GSA strategy, said Darian LeBlanc, who leads Cushman & Wakefield’s Government Services Group.
As of June 30, there were 42 properties listed for sale on GSA’s website, roughly a third of which are office buildings. Washington, D.C., California, Illinois and Texas have the most properties on the chopping block, with three apiece.
Among the listed properties include the more than 414,000-square-foot Strom Thurmond Federal Building & Courthouse in Columbia, South Carolina, and the 802,000-square-foot Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center in Battle Creek, Michigan. The former requires some $56.3 million in delinquent maintenance, while the latter, about $170 million.
Subscribe to TRD Data to unlock this content
In May, GSA Administrator Edward Forst called on Congress to remove the funding restrictions hindering these repairs. On the agency’s list of properties in need of work are 62 buildings requiring more than $100 million in work. For instance, the Agriculture South Building in Washington, D.C. alone needs $1.7 billion in repairs, and it is listed for sale on the GSA’s website. Complicating these efforts is the Congressional signoff required for any project worth at least $4 million.
In many cases, the cost of updating a building simply exceeds the asset’s value, said Creighton Armstrong, director of JLL’s Government Advisory Group.
“It’s like when you own a house — okay, do I want to rebuild the whole thing, or do I want to sell it and go get the house that I want?” he said.
LeBlanc said this administration’s apparent focus on selling buildings could re-up office leasing demand in the future. But as of now, leasing activity has stalled as well, he said.
“Today we’re not seeing much of anything coming out of the federal government,” he said. “But I think we’re on the precipice of a portfolio shift.”