The Federal Asset Sales (FAS) Program, one of five E-Government (E-Gov) initiatives managed by GSA, is designed to improve and optimize the way the federal government re-uses and disposes of its assets. The mission of the program is to create secure, efficient, one-stop online e-marketplaces for the buyers and sellers of excess government assets.

Each year the federal government conducts asset re-use and disposition activities involving billions of dollars of underutilized, non-utilized, seized, and forfeited assets. Federal assets typically migrate through a five-phase asset lifecycle management framework that includes the following steps:

• Acquisition: The purchase of an asset by a federal agency.
• Use: The utilization of an asset by the purchasing agency until it is no longer needed.
• Utilization: Also known as “excess,” this is the process of identifying, processing, reporting, and transferring excess assets among federal agencies.
• Donation: Also known as “surplus,” this is the transfer of surplus property to non-federal governmental agencies and non-profit organizations.
• Sale and Exchange/Sale: This is the sale of non-utilized assets that have migrated through the utilization and donation (U&D) stages or the sale of certain seized/forfeited assets or the sale of assets that have bypassed the utilization and donation stages.

The FAS Program focuses on the final three phases of the asset lifecycle management framework—utilization, donation, and sale. Depending on the type of assets they possess, federal agencies can partner with FAS and commit to sell their assets via one or all of the FAS e-marketplaces, which will be accessible to citizens, businesses, and government agencies through both the Firstgov.gov and eGov.gov websites. These partnerships will enable the buyers and sellers of government assets to leverage the most comprehensive, effective, efficient, and user-friendly e-marketplace solutions for the purchase of excess government property.

Launch
The FAS Program will launch e-marketplace solutions for:

• Personal Property, including business equipment, vehicles/fleet, furniture, general inventory, and other miscellaneous assets; and
• Real Property, including retail, industrial, commercial, agricultural and other types of real estate.

The FAS Personal Property Sales Solution launch is currently on hod awaiting resolution on a protest.  Launch of the Real Property Sales Solutions is expected before the end of fiscal year 2005.

Benefits
The FAS Program offers significant benefits to participating federal agencies conducting asset recovery and disposition activities. By establishing efficient and effective e-marketplace solutions for the sale of government personal and real property, FAS will enable federal agencies to share resources and benefit from increased economies of scale. The FAS initiative will also dramatically reduce development and maintenance costs for any agency planning to produce its own electronic sales system. FAS will offer those with existing systems an opportunity to access a broader and more coordinated marketplace for customer inquiry and sales. The result will be increased revenues and cost savings to the government and enhanced customer satisfaction for agency sellers, business buyers, and individual citizen buyers.