My GC told me he prices the client, not the job

Your GC was describing a real cost structure, and the honesty is worth something. The problem is that "I price the client" is also a convenient frame for extracting margin from operators who look like they can absorb it. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

The assumption doing the most work in your original comparison is that the 19 percent cheaper crew was actually executing the same spec. Eight to ten hours a week of your own time on a 2.1M asset is not a rounding error. At the hourly rate you should be placing on your time at this price point, that remediation probably closed half the gap or more. And that estimate excludes the carrying cost of any delay those mistakes introduced.

The structural issue here is that luxury GC relationships do not transfer across price tiers cleanly. A crew that is excellent at sub-900k work has a different subcontractor network, a different site supervisor standard, and a different expectation of client involvement. The finish tolerances the high-end buyer notices are exactly the tolerances that crew has never been held to. So you were not buying the same spec at a lower number. You were buying a different execution environment and paying for it in a different currency.

The rebid process itself was correct. The selection criterion was not. Price anchored to a spec sheet assumes the spec sheet captures everything that varies between a 900k and a 2.1M job, and it does not.

Going forward, the relevant screen for a GC at this price point is not the bid number. It is documented completions at comparable price points, the sub network they actually use, and a direct conversation with a prior client who ran a similar finish package. The expensive GC who prices the client is at least calibrated to what the job actually costs him. The cheaper one is not, and you fund the gap.

What was the finish category on that Westlake job, and had you locked your contingency buffer before you rebid?

The eight to ten hours a week is the number worth pricing. If your time carries any real opportunity cost, say 150 an hour over a six month project, that is 18 to 24k of labor that does not show up on the rebid comparison but absolutely came out of the deal.

What is the finish level on jobs the cheaper crew had done before, and how far under the 2.1M ARV did their mistakes land you at close?