Real Property Exchanges by the General Services Administration

The General Services Administration (GSA) is authorized by law to exchange government-owned excess and surplus properties. Excess property is property controlled by any federal agency but not required for its needs. Surplus property is excess property not required for the needs of all federal agencies as determined by the Administrator of General Services. A property exchange consists of a disposal of government-owned property and an acquisition of privately-owned property. Existing legislation should be changed to require that GSA sell, rather than exchange, properties. GAO previously recommended that Congress should consider amending the law to permit GSA to offer excess property at competitive bid and to deposit the cash proceeds into a building fund to be used for acquiring public building sites. If Congress does not want to restrict GSA's exchange authority, any exchange involving the acquisition of public buildings valued over $500,000 should be subject to either approval by, or advance reporting to, Congress.