XShares is closing its small family of real estate ETFs.

With the spectacular growth period of exchange-traded funds tapering off, we’ve seen a few fund liquidations already. With the U.S. economy in a faltering state, a few more aren’t surprising, particularly when they’re in the area of real estate.

XShares Advisors LLC is liquidating one of the fund families it manages, the Adelante Shares, which cover various slices of the real estate market. The family of seven ETFs has accumulated assets totaling roughly $17 million since its initial launch at the end of September 2007.

The family includes the following funds:

• Adelante Shares RE Growth ETF (NYSE Arca: AGV)

• Adelante Shares RE Value ETF (NYSE Arca: AVU)
• Adelante Shares RE Classics ETF (NYSE Arca: ACK)
• Adelante Shares RE Kings ETF (NYSE Arca: AKB)
• Adelante Shares RE Yield Plus ETF (NYSE Arca: ATY)
• Adelante Shares RE Shelter ETF (NYSE Arca: AQS)
• Adelante Shares RE Composite ETF (NYSE Arca: ACB)

Realty Funds Inc. the investment company in charge of the funds, said that market conditions combined with the small size of the funds and their inability to attract market interest were the main reasons behind the decision. The largest of the funds, AKB, had less than $4.5 million in assets at the close of trading last week, while none of the other funds had more than $2.2 million.

So what doomed the funds? The funds were uniformly down since inception, but had shown equally uniform positive performance year-to-date. However, real estate is not exactly an investor darling lately — even nonresidential real estate. July 24 will be the last day of trading, with the actual liquidation finalizing on July 31.

XShares recently received more than $15 million in financing from a group of European institutional investors, some of which it says it will be using to develop and launch new exchange-traded products. It also revamped its executive management in conjunction with the cash infusion, with XShares board member Joseph L. Schocken of Broadmark Capital LLC being named chairman and interim chief executive officer, replacing William Henson of Grail Partners.

Although the HealthShares series of funds continues to struggle, with just about $86 million in assets divided among the 19 funds in the family, the TDAX Independence Lifecycle ETFs that XShares launched with TD Ameritrade are doing reasonably well, with a total of $170 million in assets invested in the five funds.