Hi... It is cheeper to book direct with an owner than a travel agent as example if you book with a travel agent and pay £1000 then the TA will take upto 15% then they will contact WelcomeUSA(who have managment companies on there books to supply villas) to get your villa and they will take upto 10% and intern WelcomeUSA will contact a managment company to supply the villa and the mc will take there 10-15% and as you can imagine this leaves not much to the owner and so if owner doesnt get much the villa will suffer from lack of investment and modernisation eventualy.
I dont advertise with the likes of Virgin, FC,TC or James villas as they pay peanuts and expect you to let them have your villa for below your own running costs.
Booking direct with the owner should give you sound peace of mind in respect that you know where you are staying and what you are getting plus all the information you want on where to get things you may need and what is near your villa and where to go to get certain things you may want over there and importantly answers to any question no matter how stupid it may sound to the owner he or she will answer it for you.
I would want any guest staing in my villa to go out there with total peace of mind that they are not going there with any concern that i could have helped them with.