I am working on a few deals in three separate markets where the federal government has selected my client's bid to lease their building and was trying to find my client a lender who would provide 100% Loan to cost for the deal.

I would bid it out to a few GC and have the break down prices.  

Do not buy in an area where you'd struggle to sell within a comfortable %age of your bid. 

I assume you were chasing the low bid and unfortunately this led to abysmal contract management on your part.

When you say "bids' (framing , foundation etc)do you mean you called a bunch of different subs and got estimates or is there a way to post it and get bids in that sense, on some platform?

Moreover, I’ve noticed a concerning pattern where the agent consistently failed to secure homes we bid on previously, despite my trust in her expertise.

You may want to consider pricing it under market in order to get a bidding war.

For all people I’m hiring we start with small projects and even after they’ve established themselves to me I continue to bid out the jobs to ensure best practices and best prices.

Close processDepositsHow to make your bid preferable to a sellerEtc  

. - make sure to get bids from multiple contractors.It is easy to overestimate your ARV. - Have an agent pull recent comps for youIt is easy to underestimate the timeline. - whatever a contractor says, add 4 weeks.