It has taken nearly a year, but the selloff of the MGI Properties real estate portfolio is winding down, with the firm’s last Massachusetts asset now under agreement and its two remaining properties on the verge of being sold as well.

It’s almost completely wrapped up, Trammell Crow investment broker Edward Maher Jr. acknowledged last week. We have one waiting for offers, but everything else is under contract.

The Bay State property is a 106,000-square-foot shopping cen-ter on Route 114 in Peabody. Maher, whose firm is marketing the MGI portfolio, declined to identify either the sales price or the buyer, except to say it is an out-of-state entity. Another shopping center in Baltimore is also under agreement, while Maher said offers will be accepted this week on the final property, located in Tampa, Fla.

When completed, the selloff will culminate one of the more unusual strategies in the topsy-turvy real estate investment market, with MGI determining in 1998 that the collective value of the real estate investment trust’s assets were greater than the returns investors could receive by selling the underlying stock. In a move championed by MGI Chairman W. Pearce Coues, the entity’s board of directors subsequently voted to liquidate the portfolio, a play seldom seen in the industry.

Coues was unavailable for comment last week, but Maher said he believes the decision will ultimately prove worthwhile for investors. Given the erosion of REIT performance during the past two years, and with buyers far more cautious than they were at the start of 1999, Maher praised Coues for having the foresight to pursue the liquidation concept early on.

He really had a vision, Maher said. He was the one who was able to sit back and look at the big picture, and was willing to follow through on his plan … It was a pretty brave move.

In a statement released last month, MGI reported it had sold 61 properties for an aggregate price of $482.3 million. The figure does not reflect the final three properties, or five more that have sold in the interim. As a result of the 61 sales, MGI had made liquidating distributions to its investors totaling $24.16 per share in 1999, while the remaining properties were estimated to add another $5.50 in per-share distributions. Those figures are in line with MGI’s predictions last year that the sale would yield net proceeds of $29 to $30 per share.

The lion’s share of MGI’s holdings sold last June when Boston Capital agreed to buy 53 of the 69 properties, immediately solidifying Boston Capital as a major player in the commercial real estate market. The firm had previously focused on syndicating low-income tax credits for affordable housing.

Among the MGI holdings acquired by Boston Capital last summer were 68-80 Elm St. in Hopkinton, which sold for $30 million. 15 Crosby Drive in Bedford fetched $6.1 million, while 55 Middlesex Turnpike in Bedford sold for $8.5 million. One of the premier properties that traded in the $403 million portfolio sale was One Winthrop Square in Boston. The former Record American newspaper building, one of Boston’s first office rehabs, sold for $24.8 million, just six years after MGI bought it for $8.6 million.

According to Maher, any REITs selling in the current environment will be more on the defensive, whereas MGI was able to aggressively price its product in a much more favorable market. With the REIT industry suffering its first back-to-back years of negative returns since the mid-1970s, Maher said the acquisition mode seen through mid-1998 has yet to return, with REITs more likely to sell than to buy.

There are a few REITs that are looking at pruning their portfolios, Maher said.

At this point, there are no indications that other REITs are eyeing MGI’s strategy, with spokesman Jay Hyde of the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts unable to identify other potential candidates. Hyde, who added that NAREIT has a policy against commenting on specific firms or on future trends, said there are about 10 fewer publicly traded REITs on the association’s Equity REIT index than there were in the last quarter of 1998. The drop from 210 to about 200 came as the result of mergers and some firms moving to a private REIT formula, Hyde said, rather than a complete dissolution.

The REIT industry’s recent woes, attributed to global economic concerns and a prolonged spending spree from 1996 to mid-1998, also appear to be finally reversing, making a liquidation less likely. Since mid-December, for example, NAREIT’s Equity REIT index has posted a 12.25 total return, including a price appreciation component of 11.25 percent. During the same period, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 2.75 percent, the Russell 2000 was up 8 percent and the NASDAQ Composite increased by 9 percent.