Foreclosure transfers - how does that work?

1) bank assigns mortgage to private co. thus becoming the mortgagee. bank takes a loss.
2) if in default - private co. (mortgagee) commences foreclosure or owner transfers deed in lieu of foreclosure

So first, how does one get to be the assignee? There is profit to be made here. Second, how do you foreclose w/o going through the courts. Thought that was not allowed in NY. Third, if you are allowed to foreclose directly, when are you compelled to sell to pay the mortgagor because this mtge is not under water.

NYC10023
What you likely have is an "assisted" foreclosure.
On Offirnaim's 2nd point, you may have someone who is near foreclosure and gets in bed with a company who offers a small sum (usually what it costs in legal to foreclose and evict that person) and offer no resistance for the foreclosure to go through (deed in lieu).
And you may or may not know exactly how much was actually paid because you see the mortgage amount but there are late payment and back fees accumulated since the lis pendings that sometimes are or not made public and the foreclosure "amount" isnt always the actual amount on game day.

You also have "companies" that have relationships with some bank managers who are tasked with cleaning these properties off their books. It's not neccesarily a "dirty" relationship as sometimes a manager has 5...10 properties that the company will bulk buy.

This happens OFTEN, particularly on the "better" properties.

And so this "company" also may be owed a "good" property by the bank manager coz he ate some bad.Banks do not like to be the forecloser or be in buying and selling real estate. But again also, this particular property may not have been above water like you think, accumulated fees, some back taxes that came ahead of the mortgage, etc.