Though distressed property sales continue to make up a large share of total home sales, RealtyTrac’s latest report did show the market improving.

The foreclosure markets showed definite signs of improvement in the RealtyTrac U.S. Foreclosure & Short Sales Report, which studied distressed property sales in 2012.

Altogether, there were 947,995 distressed property sales in 2012, which is down 6 percent from 2011 and 11 percent from 2010.

Daren Blomquist, the vice president of RealtyTrac, said that distressed property sales still make up a large share of transactions in today’s housing market.

“Although foreclosure-related sales represent a shrinking share of total sales, primarily because of fewer bank-owned purchases, distressed sales are still a disproportionately high portion of the overall housing market,” Blomquist said.

Foreclosure Markets and Distressed Property Sales

How large is that portion? See our infographic below for more information: