The author somehow assumes that the robots will also be the ones doing the budgeting & talking to the home-owners about costs.

I didn't get that sense, author was very much the one doing that, and the lack of appreciation is that most people don't want to deal with all that stuff they did

Also, with the advances around ai, it's likely the soft-ai side (budget, price searching) will be handled well before the physical robots are up to the task

This sentiment (frustration with organic options/waste/mistakes) is likely why robots will replace most physical labor in the long run