The reason real estate agents have to be licensed is to provide protection for consumers against unethical operators like wholesalers.Licensing laws give states the authority to regulate agent practices and to levy fines, suspend or revoke licenses for bad actors. 

There are more actors in the REI space than in Hollywood.

These laws create extra work/expense for the majority and the minority of bad actors continue to cause problems by operating under the radar.

Possible repercussions if you have a malicious tenant for sure.

I don't ever plan on pursuing a judgement against a tenant; I'm in a quick-evict state so I'm unlikely to suffer large loss of owed rent, and any malicious/negligent damage done beyond the deposit would be into the area covered by my insurance and I would leave it to them to track down and get a judgement against the former tenant.

Do I need the Ellis Act or Just Cause to evict tenants since none are on the lease?

Failure to self-regulate means more bad actors. 

Giving them the "benefit of the doubt" is just assuming that they aren't being malicious.

But malicious intentions aren’t very uncommon on the Wall Street either.

Strips centers in solid suburbs . 10. partner with really quality fix and flipper there in Vegas... ( again choose wisely there are some real bad actors that troll BP and work in Vegas)there you go  some alternatives to think about other than HEY go buy an apartment  LOL