The volume of Union properties offered for sales plummeted in 2024. Used as an efficiency strategy for asset management, the Auctions for the transfer of public buildings and land yielded just R$5.7 million last yeara reduction of 88.5% compared to 2023 and 98% compared to operations in 2022, when R$374.5 million were raised. The number of units sold was 113 in 2022, 28 in 2023 and only nine in 2024.
Report by the Federal Audit Court (TCU) prepared in 2023 and published in February last year concluded that the The structure of the Secretariat of Public Patrimony (SPU) is insufficient to manage the voluminous federal real estate assets, with 764 thousand properties. Of these, the State uses 49,700 and provides most of the others for different uses, and may charge monthly or annual fees.
The TCU advised that, in order to improve management, there was, during the survey period, immediate opportunity to generate revenue by selling 2,487 vacant and 342 invaded addresses.
The sale of the stock of unused properties had the enthusiasm of former Economy Minister Paulo Guedes, who even said he saw potential of up to R$1 trillion for the Treasury. Between 2019 and 2022, the Bolsonaro government sold 308 properties, yielding R$833.6 million, an annual average of R$208.4 million, 125% more than in 2018, during the last year of Michel Temer’s (MDB) government. this being the oldest year with available data.
Union properties come in a wide variety of types, including buildings, land, islands and water bodies, with each category having specific characteristics and possible destinations. Of the total, 229 thousand are islands.
Despite being centralized at SPU, property management encompasses transversal processes, which involve other government bodies, such as the Army, Ministry of Cities, Incra, Caixa Econômica Federal and Federal Universities and Institutes.
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Change of strategy
With the change in command of Palácio do Planalto at the beginning of 2023, following the return of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Executive decided to review the sales policy. In February last year, the Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services (MGI) launched the “Imóvel da Gente”, a program that aims to transfer or sell a thousand properties by 2026with a main focus on housing policies.
At the time of the announcement of the federal property transfer program, the Minister of Management, Esther Dweck, said that the facilitation of sales during previous years would have proven fragile. Dweck cited auctions that did not arouse the interest of the private sector, with cases of sales that did not attract bids and others sold for R$50,000, R$30,000 and even R$5,000, below market value.
The note is supported by a TCU report, which concluded, in November 2021, that there was low effectiveness in the sales strategy practiced by the federal management at the time. The process points out that the Department of Heritage put 243 properties up for sale between August 26, 2020 and July 31, 2021. However, only 65 were purchased, a success rate of just 27%. In monetary terms, the properties offered represented R$1.34 billion and those auctioned represented around R$119 million.
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The Ministry of Management, in response to the Estadão/Broadcastsaid that the change in the allocation strategy alters the view on the potential of properties. “The previous government had a logic of selling assets, often below market value. Imóvel da Gente reverses this logic, valuing public assets and providing socio-environmental purposes”, he stated in a statement.
In a balance delivered on Wednesday (8), the MGI says that transfers for the purposes set out in “Imóvel da Gente” totaled 625 in the first 22 months of management, 294 in 2023 and 331 between January and October 2024. The target, according to the MGI, remains one thousand by 2026, with 375 remaining for this to be achieved. The government’s projection is that 400,000 families will benefit from the properties.
Even if the target of transferring a thousand properties by 2026 is exceeded by a few dozen, the government will be far from assigning the 2,829 addresses that the TCU identified as having immediate potential to be transferred. And the real volume of idle assets can be much higher than that. Only from the National Social Security Institute (INSS) there are 3,213 non-operational properties. Of these, 483 had already been classified by the government, a year ago, as suitable for being transferred via the “Imóvel da Gente” program.
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SPU estimates that the properties under its management are worth R$1.77 trillion. But TCU coaches say the numbers could be completely different from that. The rapporteur of the survey carried out by the Court, minister Jhonatan de Jesus, says in the report that the lack of reliability in property registries prevents a clear and complete view of the portfolio of Union assets. “This fact even contributes to the difficulty in planning strategic and operational department of the Secretariat.”
The SPU information system, under development since 2015, has only half of the expected modules, having already cost R$11 million to the public coffers. “Management is carried out inefficiently. Actions to mitigate these risks associated with the management of these assets have the potential to generate significant gains for the Union and preserve heritage in a sustainable way”, explained the minister-rapporteur.
According to the TCU, property values are likely to be out of date. “More than 650 thousand properties in the Union are destined for occupation and lease. These institutes determine the collection based on a percentage, defined by law, applied to the appraised value of the respective assets. Therefore, the effort to revaluate federal properties is essential to enable the appropriate return to the treasury.”
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Despite lower sales revenue, SPU’s total revenue from properties, when considering rents or other types of charges, has maintained a stable level since 2016, in values adjusted for inflation. Stability, however, does not correspond to the evolution of the number of properties in the Union, which continues to grow. With the current 764 thousand, there are 22 thousand more than the volume indicated by the TCU report.
