The nation’s distressed housing market has improved quite a bit in the last year, and that progress is also clear here in Massachusetts.

Distressed home sales in the U.S. have fallen from 17 percent of all existing-home sales to just 12 percent in the last 12 months, according to the latest Realtor Confidence Index from the National Association of Realtors. That’s a 29.4 percent decline, and further evidence of the grand balancing act occurring in the nation’s housing market, as it inches closer and closer to normalcy.

How does that trend compare to what’s happening here in Massachusetts? Thankfully, things are even better here. According to exclusive information that NAR provided us from the Realtor Confidence Index, distressed sales in The Bay State are down from 15 percent in August 2013 to just 4 percent in August 2014, a remarkable 73.3 percent decline.

Check out our graph below to see how those numbers compare with other states: