They also offer a website builder to create your own website and you can also pay to upgrade and use other tools. 

With this situation, it makes me wonder what tools he could have used to figure out if that was a good flip or not.

Use the "Find a Lender" tool.

Zillow's API is no longer offered (or they make it extremely hard to access these days - have had no luck finding an updated link/page for it), Redfin has broad-stroke CSVs you can download that only give 5-10 fields of info and not often at the metro area, you can't legally create a tool to crawl these websites...I'm looking for 1 (or a handful of sources) to pull together basic metrics at the metro/city level for US real estate.

Use a tool like STR Insights to analyze STR potential in your area.

You can simplify it with few free and easy to use tools, if you know what your leverage looks like.

To reach your objectives, make use of BiggerPockets tools, get in touch with knowledgeable investors, and adopt a methodical strategy.

It obviously depends on where you're looking to invest, but there are tons of great tools out there to help you evaluate a market (AirDNA, Rabbu, etc..).

its been a great undervalued tool for me

We've got a chat tool on the site, but no one to organize the chats right now.