One of the interesting war developments in the United States was the change in the attitude of the War Department toward real estate. Before the war the various bureaus and other agencies of the War Department acquired their own real estate by lease or purchase as they needed it and as they could secure authority to procure it. The war itself resulted in an intense demand for real estate by the War Department as sites for its war buildings or as quarters to be occupied under lease. Real estate, therefore, came to be regarded as a commodity in the supply of the Army; just as much a commodity as food or ammunition. And, as the procurement of other commodities was eventually administered and controlled by a centralized agency, so the centralized procurement of real estate was placed in the hands of a new organization called the Real Estate Service. The Real Estate Service acted as the Army’s real estate agent. The various bureaus still originated the projects for the acquisition of property, and then the Real Estate Service acquired the property as agent for the bureaus. The Service was composed of experts who saw to it that deeds and leases were correctly drawn and that the Government made good bargains. The armistice, if anything, meant increased effort for the Real Estate Service, since the problem of the storage of surplus supplies was to be solved only by the acquisition of space. It was also necessary to dispense with high-priced locations, essential as they had been during the actual hostilities, and to substitute more economical facilities. Many of the War Department’s war factories had been built on leased sites, and it was necessary to purchase these sites wherever it was expedient for the Department to retain the factory as a preparedness asset or where it was good business to buy the land in order to sell the factory advantageously.