Bank-owned homes and short sales last year accounted for the smallest slice of overall sales in three years but still made up nearly a quarter of all U.S. homes sold in 2011.

Some 907,138 sales were made last year of foreclosed-upon homes and others that were in some stage of the process. They represented about 23 percent of all home sales in 2011, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.

As a percentage of all homes sold, sales of bank-owned properties and other homes on the foreclosure track last year were back down to 2008 levels. But they remained an outsize portion of total sales compared 2005, when sales of previously occupied homes peaked and foreclosure sales comprised less than 1 percent of all sales, the firm said.

The sales peaked in 2009 at about 1.1 million and made up about 37 percent of all sales.

The decline in foreclosure-related sales last year coincided with a sharp drop in the number of homes taken back by lenders as the banking industry wrestled with foreclosure-abuse claims.

Those claims, which included allegations that banks and mortgage servicers processed foreclosures without verifying documents, led banks to temporarily put foreclosures on hold, refile others and put off taking action against borrowers behind on their mortgage payments.

That helped slow the flow of foreclosed properties available for sale in Las Vegas, Detroit and other markets.

A $25 billion settlement reached earlier this year between the nation’s biggest mortgage lenders and 49 state attorneys general has begun paving the way for more foreclosures this year, however.

“That wave of new foreclosures that we’re seeing is going to translate into more short sale listings and more bank-owned listings in the next three to six months,’’ said Daren Blomquist, a vice president at RealtyTrac.