Brakes are shaking when applied

My husband has a Santa Fe and it has been shaking and when you go to put on the brakes it shakes like you would not believe. He took it to the mechanic to get a wheel alignment. He was out of town for the day. I called mechanic he said. Well I did not do the wheel alignment because the right front ball joint is bad. I said. Oh, I am not sure what that is but I knew it was something because of the shaking. I said 'I did some research when I came home from the lake (that is when I knew it was bad) and I had thought maybe the brakes. I am sure he said ' no the technician said there was ample pad left on the brakes'. I swore he said that. I went on to say, I thought maybe it could be the rotors. Within two seconds he went on to say, well the technician did notice that the rotors were bad and the brakes too. So it went from being a right ball joint for @279 to a ball joint to 580.00 something for ball joint, rotors and brakes and another 100.00 for the wheel alignment. I told him I would be up to pay the $30.00 for balancing and tire rotation and I would let him know. Does this sound right?