My experience is that the owners not usings agents are the cheap ones that will cause trouble for everything and not pay up for renovations and things breaking down. Hands off owners are the best as they just let the agent handle things professionally instead of trying to save a buck by calling illegal workers to half fix everything, then steal your deposit because things are broken when you leave.
I have not met any of those magical owner that fixes everything correctly and would go the extra mile and I actually wonder what would be their inventive to do so, when simply having an agent take care of everything would save their time.
I (hope) I’m like this. Im not handy at all, and have a tenant. When a problem arises for them, I just call the appropriate person (plumber, handyman, etc..) to come fix it. It’s the same thing I do when a problem arises in my own house. Problems don’t tend to come up too often, maybe once every few months, so I don’t see why I need to pay someone to handle this stuff for me.