Just to be clear, are you painting a condo that you are moving out of or painting a condo that you are moving into? Is it a new unit or an older one?

Sina- it’s Brand new construction we are moving into. contractor had all walls primed and leaving to buyers (myself) to paint to personal taste.

In that case I think just the regular paint job should be fine

Hahaha, I am sorry. I would tell him NO UPSELL, that you want xxx sq ft sprayed flat SW color XX. It is cheaper to paint the walls prior to the install of doors, crown, baseboards, window trim.

Patricia- any way of knowing if the walls were sanded before priming?

One more question: is skim coating necessary? Or a great way of up charging 2k?

One coat of primer and one coat of paint is generally not adequate for a good result. The drywall primer does not really give a good seal, especially if it is the typical PVA primer. It might be OK if flat wall paint is to be used, but if higher sheens paint are to be used, two finish coats are required for a nice even sheen. Using anything less than top quality paint is "penny wise and pound foolish".

I wouldn't assume that the sanding, priming done by the contractor was anything but the bare minimum necessary so it looks passable.

Pay him to clean it up and paint it properly. You won't regret it.

You never get a second chance to paint new walls. Once it's done, that's the base/finish you'll be painting over for the life of the house. Every ding, bump, flaw and wall booger will be sealed in forever.

Flaws often don't become obvious until the primer is applied. A good job would at least entail going around and checking for and correcting those flaws. Often, flaws don't become obvious until lighting is installed, such as wall and floor lamps. Light traveling parallel over walls is very unforgiving. I used to encourage customers to place a Post-It Note over some flaw they would see at night that "bugged them." Working during the daylight, such a flaw may not be easy to see and might be missed.

Sheen is everything. What is the sheen?

In my market (not condo), everything is flat and skim coats are rare. In a condo, you usually have less square footage and often higher levels of finish. But condos can be $100 a sqft or $1000. We have no info on that here.

So I would plan on matching the rest of the condo. Is it high-end?

I am going to make a presumption. If the builder left you to finish the walls, it isn't high-end. The other side is that you have a designer so it isn't low end either.

Context means everything.

Ooops -Both Context and Sheen can't be everything. So 50/50.

It depends on the condition the condo is in now. Yes, PVA is a cheap primer, but if you are applying two coats of some high quality paint over that, you will still end up with a good paint job that will last. I don't know that the average person or even myself would notice the difference if you upgrade the primer. Same deal with the skimcoating. You will have perfect walls if you do the skimcoat, but most people are ok with level 4 drywall job which is standard. I can't imagine the average person is going to notice. Sanding should be done no matter what as it's not that big of a deal because nothing should be super rough after the prime coat anyway. I would not even offer such a package unless the customer requested it specifically and told me money was no option.