Arlington managed to defend its STR regulations in court by carefully gathering concrete data and framing its regulations around public safety concerns.

I don't think it is that accurate sometimes, but combined with the review on the 2 OTA's, you should get a pretty good idea.You can also go to Awning.com's estimator - https://www.awning.com/airbnb-estimatorIt is free and pulls the same basic data AirDNA does.

Despite several attempts to fix these—like reconnecting and getting help from support—the issues have persisted, making it challenging to rely on the data integration via Yodlee, especially when other platforms like Plaid seem to handle this stuff more smoothly.

Here is the thing about data: you can copy it effortlessly.

Look at census data or local reports.Explore the Neighborhoods:Amenities: Properties close to schools, shops, and transit tend to attract more tenants.

He crunches data and lists which markets are best for investing.

That data looks like it is coming from a PMS so you could need to know how that is being calculated inside PMS. 

What data points are most important to you in your decision-making process?

The main difference between free and premium is that premium saves all your data and also provides tax analytics.

No penalty to let project die slow death and collect salary, travel and advertising money from it.This is data, everyone should make their own data driven decision based on it.