No one will ever forget about the U.S. housing bubble and how it brought down the financial system when it burst.

After collapsing, U.S. home prices are back on the rise. But they're nowhere near their all-time highs.

The same can't be said about some international housing markets were prices remain elevated.

Bespoke Investment Group points to New Zealand, Canada, and Australia in particular.

...English-speaking former UK colonies are by far the most aggressively expensive home price cohort. The boom/bust cycle in home prices for Australia, New Zealand, and Canada was much shorter than it was for other economies, and now prices are grinding steadily higher again; Canada and New Zealand are the only two advanced economies at all time highs for home prices. The Canadian market, driven by foreign investment in cities like Vancouver and a boom in oil production throughout the central provinces, especially Alberta, is trending strongly to the upside. Australia had a mini-cycle downwards but is now once again moving up. But the real winner among the 11 economies is New Zealand. Home prices there have gone up by more than 93% since 2000, the best performance of any advanced economy. It's no surprise then that the Reserve Bank of New Zealand hiked interest rates at their last meeting.

You might be surprised to see that the UK itself isn't much higher considering the widely-reported boom in London home prices.

"Home prices aren't accelerating aggressively upwards on an aggregate basis, mostly because the concerns of a housing bubble are rooted in one specific area, London," noted Bespoke.

At the bottom are Japan, where deflation has persisted and housing isn't really considered an investment, and Germany, where rentals are more popular and there is no deduction in the tax code for mortgage interest.