Getting the specification before you get prices
The most common reason two roofing quotes cannot be compared is not dishonesty. It is that each contractor assumed a different product, because nobody told them which one the community requires.
One email, before the phone calls
Ask the management company for the current architectural specification for roofing in writing: profile, colour, any approved manufacturers, and whether approval is required before a permit is pulled. It is a standard request and usually answered the same week.
Then hand the identical document to every bidder. From that point the quotes differ on work rather than on assumptions, which is the only way a comparison means anything.
What approval actually costs you
Time, not money. Applications are reviewed on a schedule, and a job quoted without accounting for that is a start date that has not been tested. Ask each bidder how they handle the approval step; the ones who work in your community will answer immediately.
Doing the work without approval is the expensive version. It can leave you responsible for removing and redoing a roof that is otherwise perfectly sound.
When there are no rules
Outside governed communities the choice returns to you, and it becomes a real decision rather than a formality: tile, shingle or metal, matched to the pitch of the house and to how far from the water it sits. The rest of the quote is compared exactly the same way.
Rules differ from one community to the next and change over time. Use the current written specification from your own management company, never a neighbour’s recollection.