In our market (AA county), deals are done without even a preliminary visit to the property within hours of the listing being "public".

What are the likely consequences for filing a complaint on a person who publicly claims to be a Class A contractor in Virginia but holds no license at all?

The due diligence can be fairly quick with most lots by visiting the codes dept and talking to zoning, public works, stormwater, metro water, etc.

The square footage of the property should be available in the public record and appraisers generally go by that, at least in my market.

If they’re added as occupants instead of tenants, then they wouldn’t get to piggyback off their brother’s assured continued good rental history.If they’re added as tenants, they do NOT meet our rental qualification requirement standards, so I’m not sure how to avoid trouble there making such big exceptions … or maybe the rules are different in a roommate situation like this, since we can’t market the remaining tenant or roommate spots to the public, to move in with Tenant Alpha?

I think the general public would be shocked if data ever got into the popular media regarding how much fraud there is.

Not sure why it's legal, but it's no different than Zillow, the general public thinks it's useful and that's what matters. 

The trust owns the property, but because there is no public registry of trusts, all someone would know is the name of the trust and the name of the trustee.

b) Buying securities like REIT's (publicly traded or unlisted REIT's like those offered by Fundrise, Realty Mogul): Advantages are instant diversification, low investment minimums, liquidity (this varies), the ability to play in all kinds of sectors of real estate (residential, office, industrial, storage, etc).

First time home owners and investors need to be aware that scams often happen in real estate because a lot of information is public record IE: name, address, parcel numbers.