Federal Real Property: Successful Public Buildings Service Reorganization Is Critical for Addressing Longstanding Challenges
Fast Facts
We testified on the General Services Administration's management of federal real property before the House Transportation and Infrastructure’s Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management.
It is based primarily on the following reports:
Federal Real Property: Agencies Need New Benchmarks to Measure and Shed Underutilized Space
Federal Real Property: GSA Should Improve Accuracy, Completeness, and Usefulness of Public Data
GSA has addressed some of our previous recommendations but still needs to address others.
Also, this testimony shares preliminary observations of our ongoing review of the Public Buildings Service's reorganization, within GSA.
Highlights
What GAO Found
Federal real property management has faced longstanding challenges. The General Services Administration (GSA) and its component office, the Public Buildings Service (Buildings Service), play a central role in addressing the high-risk issues identified by GAO of underused buildings, real property data reliability, and building condition.
- Underused buildings. Federal agencies, many of which are tenants in buildings managed by the Buildings Service, have long struggled to determine how much space they need to fulfill their missions. Retaining this underused space costs millions of dollars. While the issue remains on GAO’s High-Risk List, GSA and others have taken steps to address underused buildings in recent years. For example, in March 2025, GSA launched a program called Space Match to help agencies find available office space in underused federal space. According to GSA, potential benefits of the program include helping agencies find available space as employees return to in-person work; optimizing the use of underused space; and creating a collaborative work environment for agencies.
- Data reliability. Without reliable data, supporting real property management and decision making is difficult. GAO has identified problems with the reliability of federal real property data since GAO first designated management of federal real property as a High-Risk area in 2003. GSA has taken steps to improve the reliability of real property data, including contributing to new quality standards in August 2024.
- Building Condition. In the 2025 High-Risk Update, GAO added building condition as a new concern for federal real property due to large increases in the cost of addressing deferred maintenance in federal buildings. This backlog of maintenance and repair needs has more than doubled in estimated cost from fiscal years 2017 through 2024, going from $170 billion to $370 billion. In addition, GAO found in 2023 that the spaces of federal agencies, many of which are GSA tenants, are not well configured to meet modern office needs. If agencies continue to operate in poorly configured office buildings, they will continue to underuse space, spending unnecessary operating funds. GSA and Buildings Service tenant agencies are taking steps to improve building condition and configuration, but challenges remain.
As instructed by the administration, the Buildings Service began a major reorganization in March 2025, which has included reducing staff levels by about 50 percent. Buildings Service officials told GAO in September 2025 that they planned to finalize this reorganization in October 2025. GAO has not confirmed with GSA how the recent lapse in appropriations affected its implementation timeline. GAO will issue a report in the coming months applying leading practices for agency reforms to the Buildings Service’s reorganization efforts. GAO’s past work has shown that agency reforms are more likely to be successful in refocusing and enhancing agency missions and achieving efficiency and effectiveness if they follow these leading practices.
Why GAO Did This Study
Federal real property management has been on GAO’s High-Risk List since 2003. GAO has previously reported that better management is needed to effectively dispose of underused buildings, collect reliable real property data, and improve the condition of federal buildings. The Buildings Service’s primary mission is to manage federal real property. In March 2025, the Buildings Service began taking reorganization actions.
This statement discusses how the issues of underused buildings, data reliability, and the condition of federal buildings on the High-Risk List relate to GSA and the efforts GSA’s Buildings Service has taken to reorganize as of October 2025. This work is a part of a review for Congress on the organization and management of the Buildings Service.
GAO’s description of the relationship of the high-risk issues to GSA is based on GAO’s prior work and reflects GAO’s most recent High-Risk Update, released on February 25, 2025. As of May 2025, GAO has eight open priority recommendations to GSA on real property High-Risk issues, including property disposal, data reliability, and the management of deferred maintenance and repair. See GAO-25-108060.
To identify the steps the Buildings Service has taken to reorganize, GAO reviewed GSA documents and interviewed GSA officials.
For more information, contact: Heather Krause at krauseH@gao.gov.