(Mark your Calendars: RealShare NEW YORK at the Marriott Marquis on October 12.)

WASHINGTON, DC-As Washington lurches, hopefully and frantically, to a last-minute solution regarding the debt ceiling, it also continues to look for additional ways to bridge its ever widening budget deficit gap. One of these paths is its disposition of commercial real estate, such as its data centers, postal offices and other holdings. Yet as the debt ceiling talks have so painfully illustrated--once again--nothing is ever simple in Washington. Political considerations may hinder the US Postal Service’s plans to dispose of some of its excess real estate. Meanwhile, a Congressional Budget Office report finds that an expected $15 billion in real estate sales may not be reasonable.

The Postal Service just announced plans to dispose of at least 3,700 retail offices. It will, at least in part, make up for these lost services by partnering with third-party retailers under a program called Village Post. A list of sites being considered can be found here.

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The postal service recently tapped CBRE to serve as its exclusive service provider, a contract that will presumably include such transactions. Yet the process is already showing signs of becoming fraught with political considerations, as Congress officials from rural areas, where most of the cuts are planned are already starting to protest.

Another aspect of the government property disposition strategy is the sell off of some $15 billion worth of government property--a plan announced by the Obama Administration earlier this year. Under this plan a structure similar to the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission would be formed to facilitate the sale of unused or unneeded government-owned real estate. In May, a House of Representatives subcommittee marked up and then approved a bill that would set up such a commission to identify real estate properties that would be put out for sale.

However on Wednesday, a hearing by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee suggested that the estimated $15 billion in savings was overstated. Committee members pointed to a Congressional Budget Office finding that in order to generate savings, new properties would have to be identified and their value would have to be higher than those currently listed.  According to the report, as summarized by the committee:

• One-third of the excess properties listed are held by defense agencies and sale or disposal of defense facilities, and would not be covered by the plan;

• 45% of the listed properties are already in the process of being disposed under current law;

• 28% will probably be demolished;

• 20% have either already been disposed of, are no longer considered excess, or have been transferred to another federal agency;

• About 6% are slated to be conveyed for little or no cost to another public entity or transferred for economic development purposes.

This leaves less than 1%, or about 30, of the excess properties and structures that can be expected to be sold.