Aged-care operators are bracing for a new era of consolidation as larger groups pounce on smaller players and offshore investors look to opportunities created by Australia’s ageing population.

Predictions of Vancouver’s bubble bursting have come and gone for two decades now, and the real estate market has blithely ignored them. But similarities to Australian’s deepening debt position have emerged here.

Australian property prices are in a bubble and heading towards a correction in the next two or three years, says a leading investment bank. UBS crunched the numbers and has done a historical comparison that indicates soaring property prices in major cities across Australia have begun to exhibit some bubble-like characteristics but there is no sign yet of an impending cause for it to burst until 2016-2017.