I currently reside in the Washington, DC area and have my own boutique public affairs firm.

@Benny Gelbendorf Unfortunately, the RE authority in Ohio (The Division) has publicly scrutinized wholesaling and been very clear they are not tolerating unlicensed activity....this may be part of the cause.

Cabinet Program: Exclusive Discounts for being a NREIA Member that are not open to the public..

Any lien (ex: mortgage) taken out on a property in my area is public record. 

So obviously this involves CAP rates and unfortunately not a lot of deals that can be found on public search engines. 

As soon as you file for eviction, that information is public. that is enough for me as a landlord to shy away from a prospect. that means they had payment issues or some other issue strong enough to make the landlord take it to court.

The majority of his employees work by email or phone and don't interact with the public.

There are many ways to protect yourself, the best way in my opinion, is doing your “due diligence” on the Ira company and even more important is the “due diligence” on the investment.In this day and technology age background checks, social media, state and local licensing filing pages on line, better business bureau, BP forums, etc I don’t think a company advertising and in the public everyday  can fool all the people all the time. 

@Joaquin Camarasa I found this publication by HUD https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/DisplacementReport.pdf which towards the end of the paper outlines policies implemented in DC.

Companies moving in, public transit, younger population etc.