On Friday, the Trump administration took a small step back into the real estate market by starting the process of listing eight properties for potential sale. This comes after cancelling a bigger plan earlier this month to reduce the number of federally owned properties.

The properties listed on Friday are part of the usual process handled by the General Services Administration (GSA), which manages federal buildings and acts as a landlord for government agencies. “To reduce costs for taxpayers & better serve agencies, @USGSA is rightsizing the federal real estate portfolio. We’re accelerating the disposition of eight federal assets, consistent with all applicable laws, with more coming,” Stephen Ehikian, the GSA’s acting administrator said in a post on X.

The properties up for sale included a Social Security Trust Fund building in Bridgeton, New Jersey, and a federal building in Maryland near Washington, which the GSA had already planned to sell. The agency headquarters, architectural jewels, and other high-profile structures that the GSA identified earlier this month while soliciting bids on 443 "non-core" assets were missing. Within hours, the list was reduced to 320. The next day, it removed the other homes from the market entirely. The episode was just one of many ups and downs in President Donald Trump’s second term, where billionaire adviser Elon Musk has applied his “move fast and break things” approach to shrinking the federal government.

However, the initial list of buildings for sale surprised many in Washington, including some members of Congress. These lawmakers not only represent the areas where the federal buildings are located but also rent office space in some of them. A large-scale government sell-off could further weaken the already struggling commercial real estate market.