If his forecasts do not come true it will be because governments “wave the magic wand and kick the can down the road again”.

“I think China's bubble is going to burst and I cannot see any way that Australian property prices can keep going up," he says.

Dent says Sydney and Melbourne property markets are being held up by foreign buyers and that cannot last forever.

The Reserve Bank of Australia and most Australian economists say there is no bubble in Australian house prices. But Dent is sticking to his guns.

“Nobody in real estate development or government can afford to say that 'we have got a bubble',” he says. “They will always say it is not a bubble”.

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But what of our special factors - we are a very large country with a unique economy and most of the population concentrated in a few conurbations - don't they count against the general rules for bubbles and their ending. Dent says he has studied every bubble in history and every time a bubble comes whether it is in tulip bulbs, gold, stocks or housing they are always described by those on the inside as being different, and unlikely to burst.

“I am saying that China has the biggest [bubble] and that is going to trigger [the bursting of] your bubble. Your real estate is so high it has to come down in the next few years."