Is that $2900 mate just for the front?? Honestly, I don't think the brick looks so bad, at least in the photo.
My two cents for getting far more bang for much less buck:
- Repaint that blue door in a nice, neutral color
- Repaint all the window frames
- Power wash the sidewalk
- Replace that light fixture with something nicer, like a black, wrought iron fixture
- Put out a nice, new welcome mat
- Put out some flower planters, and perhaps a window box with flowers
If you're still intent on doing the brick: I'm not a brick exert by any stretch, but I re-stained a similar sized area of the brick on my house and it came out looking like new for $60. I did not use paint, I used an awesome brick stain that I ordered off the internet from a British company (sorry I can't remember the name offhand, but if you're interested in pursuing I'll look it up for you). It's not paint, it's a stain that soaks into the porous brick and it's fantastic. It looked really crappy beforehand -- faded, light pink and uneven bricks. Afterwards, they were a nice, uniform deep red. You can choose different colored stains.
I would think you could hire a painter from Craigslist to put the stain on for a few hundred bucks in Philadelphia.
If you do choose to paint instead of stain, I see absolutely no point in "acid washing" first, that sounds like an unnecessary markup -- just start painting. Again, should cost you only a few hundred bucks plus materials. Good luck!