Donald Trump to Sell Off Half of All Federal Property: What to Know
The General Services Administration (GSA) reportedly sent out notice on Tuesday that it plans to sell half of the federal property it manages—a move that appears to contradict
Donald Trump's and
Elon Musk's plans to get federal employees to return to in-person work in the office.
Why It Matters
Trump is pushing to drastically shrink the size of the federal government, signing an executive order that imposed a 90-day hiring freeze on federal agencies—with the exception of military personnel of the armed forces or roles linked to immigration enforcement, national security and public safety—and offering incentives to federal workers to quit their jobs.
In an email sent to federal workers late last month, the Trump administration asked almost all government employees to decide by February 6 whether they want to resign and receive payment for eight months. The move was strongly condemned by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), who said it created "chaos for the Americans who depend on a functioning federal government."
GSA regional managers last week received messages from the agency's headquarters in Washington directing them to terminate the leases on all of the roughly 7,500 federal offices across the country, the Associated Press reported.
The ultimate goal of these moves is to save money for the federal government; senior Trump officials reportedly told the media that downsizing the federal workforce could save up to $100 billion.
What to Know
In a message shared on social media by journalist Lisa Desjardins, GSA's Public Buildings Service (
PBS) Commissioner Michael Peters informed the agency's employees that a recent analysis revealed "a gross excess of space" in PBS' portfolio "as well as substantial levels of deferred maintenance."
The combination of these two factors, Peters said, has resulted in "excess spending" and "suboptimal working conditions for the federal workforce at many locations."
The solution to these problems, the commissioner said, is to reduce non-DoD federal building space by "at least 50 percent." This reduction will come from "more efficient space utilization, as well as an overall downsizing of the federal workforce," Peters wrote. "In addition, by transitioning from an agency-centric model of space utilization to a 'whole government' approach that assesses requirements and availability across agencies, we expect to further consolidate and reduce space, as well as downsize the associated support staff and other PBS resources," he added.
According to the GSA website, PBS currently owns or leases an inventory of more than 8,800 assets, maintains more than 370 million square feet of workspace for 1.1 million federal employees, and preserves more than 500 historic properties.
The reduction in federal property seems to contradict Trump's recent order for federal employees to quit remote work and return to the office "as soon as practicable." On January 20, the president issued a memo asking heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branches of the government to "take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis."
While the GSA's plans to sell off half of its federal property is likely to leave federal employees wondering whether they'll have a workplace to go back to in the first place, the move seems to fit in with Trump's plan for a reduced federal workforce.
What People Are Saying
A former GSA official told the Federal News Network on condition of anonymity: "It is a prerogative of the president to set the budgets, to make sure that the government is functioning in a reflection of the way they want. I'm not trying to take that away from the administration. But to come in and just do mass layoffs and without really understanding the potential consequences — there's mission-critical infrastructure run out of GSA."
Heather Long, an economic columnist at the
Washington Post, wrote on X: "This is so short-sighted. The GSA oversees federal buildings and office leases. If the US gov't dumps half of its real estate portfolio overnight, that would [be] a fire sale. Keep in mind the GSA has been steadily reducing the US gov't office footprint since 2013. GSA shrank its office space footprint by 43% from 2013 to 2023. More reductions are in the works, but you want this to be a GRADUAL process. Otherwise taxpayers won't get a good deal."
The Department of Government Efficiency wrote on X on Tuesday: "Today: - 12 consulting contract terminations (in GSA and the Dept. of Education) for a total savings of ~$30mm, including a $23mm work order for 'digital modernization Program Management Office support'; -12 underutilized lease cancellations for an annual savings of ~$3mm."
What's Next
While admitting that there's no fully formed plans for how to shrink the federal property portfolio, Peters said that it's clear that the GSA "is going to be a substantially smaller organization in the future."
The commissioner offered no details on a timeline for the downsizing, but the Federal News Network reported that employees have been told a non-voluntary Reduction in Force (RIF) is expected shortly after Thursday.
