With profits continuing to soar at the UK’s leading property portals, all eyes are inevitably on their future direction.

Rightmove’s share price is the highest it has ever been, breaking through the £50 mark, and above £51 yesterday, after its profits leapt 10% in the last year to £178m.

ZPG’s share price sits just under £5 – shooting up 30% in May after US venture capital firm Silver Lake offered to buy it for $2.2bn.

But what now for these two great rivals and for the smaller portals nipping at their heels? How can they continue to keep investors happy while estate agents are struggling to make ends meet because of lower transactions and reduced fees?

Our greatest fear must surely be if they choose to follow the model taken by Zillow, the largest online lister in the US.

Not only do they offer properties for sale by owner but now they’re buying up property those owners are listing and doing them up, for the agents on its site to fight over to sell?

Zillow is trialling the ‘Instant Offer’ scheme in Las Vegas and Arizona – and although it is taking a gamble, it could be a roll of the dice worth taking, with the company estimating an eventual £1bn profit a year.

Its first property for sale, in Phoenix, was tagged on its own website as ‘Owned by Zillow’ and was marketed at $15,000 more than it paid – a healthy profit even taking into account associated costs … if it sells for that price.

Zillow’s move into ‘house flipping’ hasn’t all been plain sailing, prompting Morgan Stanley to downgrade its investment rating on Zillow stock because of concerns about the associated risks of such a scheme.

Although the UK has a number of companies offering to buy your home ‘fast’ – and at a discount – it only takes our main portals to change their models and follow suit, and the whole industry will be flipped on its head.

It would be interesting to see how estate agents would choose to respond, given how Rightmove has managed to grow its estate agency base, despite increasing its fees, especially among businesses with more than 100 branches.

It’s my guess the portals here aren’t ready to take the risk … just yet. But who knows what they might be thinking a few months down the road?

The future of estate agency

 While future-gazing about the portals, it’s never a bad thing to get out our telescopes and scrutinise what our own future as estate agents may look like.

We’ve already seen a great transformation in property marketing, using specialist social media services to reach even greater numbers of prospects.

Who would have thought a decade ago that we’d be creating high-quality video on our smartphones, holding more processing power in our hands than you’d find in those early mainframe computers?

Or that fax machines or rolls of film or VHS videos would become a thing of the past, along with many big-name brands and traditional businesses that have failed to adapt to the online world.

Yet our own futures are inextricably linked to the incredible pace of change, with face and voice recognition, new modes of transport (flying cars and drones?) and artificial intelligence all set to change the way we do business.

I’m still a great believer that we’re a people business – and the better quality your staff and the higher service standards you offer, the more referrals you’ll get.

Yet there will come a time when you won’t be able to tell the difference between a real person and a chatbot, as they learn our language and communicate more efficiently than we do.

The question is, how prepared are you for change? Are you ready for this brave new world?

What’s your business really worth?

Estate agents looking to sell up need to start having realistic expectations about what their business is worth – and follow the same advice they give their own clients.

Their firm is only worth what someone is prepared to pay – and in the current climate, it’s not as much as they think.

I’ve been approached by a number of agents looking to throw in the towel who are fearful for the future and want to quit while they’re ahead.

But what many don’t seem to realise is that their business isn’t worth what it was even two or three years ago.

This is due to a combination of rising costs and a stagnant market, combined with a slump in profit for those who have rental portfolios, which will be made worse by the tenant fees ban.

We’re forever telling customers that their property won’t sell if they over-inflate the price. Yet I fear that many independent agents have their head in the clouds over what their own company is worth.

If you really do want to get out of the business, the key is to offer a buyer something they don’t already have and ensure it is operating at peak performance when it comes to cost savings and profit.

Because if you can’t see a future for your business, why should someone else?

* Paul Smith is CEO of Spicerhaart