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Notes -
This only really affects second mortgages - a foreclosing first mortgage holder will normally set the upset price equal to the outstanding balance plus fees. If nobody bids enough at the auction to make the lender whole, then they will take back the property and sell it the usual way as REO* (which normally gets a better price than an auction because you can sell to normie buyers). In fact, this is what almost always happens, because properties with enough equity to cover the fees and expenses of a foreclosure don't normally end up in foreclosure.
The situation is different when there is a second mortgage and the property is valuable enough that a sale will pay the first but not the second. In this situation the second mortgage holder may bid above the upset price, win the auction, and sell the REO themselves. (They are able to do this because they are in effect paying themselves - anything the first mortgage holder collects at auction above the upset price goes to the second mortgage holder anyway). But if someone exercises a "Jersey first refusal" to buy the property at the upset price set by the first mortgage holder, the second mortgage holder gets wiped out.
That would be easy first mortgage availability. Using a second mortgage on a purchase was one of the shady practices that were mostly banned after the 2008 crisis. Most second mortgages are used when the homeowner wants to cash in equity (for any of multiple good or bad reasons) without refinancing the first mortgage (either because they have a fixed rate which is now below market, or because their credit has deteriorated so they couldn't get a prime refi - this second case is the classic use case for subprime).
My guess is that this is intended as a straightforward taking from subprime second mortgage lenders to benefit sympathetic-to-Democrats financially irresponsible homeowners.
* Real Estate Owned
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