New Zealand housing prices were pretty flat up for the two decades until the passage of the Resource Management Act (RMA) in 1993. They then soared well before any foreign buyers such as from China entered the market.
Source: International House Price Database – Dallas Fed December 2015; nominal housing prices for each country is deflated by the personal consumption deflator for that country.
Most of the housing price rises were under the watch of a Labour Government – a party which is supposed to look out for working families.
The failure of the Labour Party to nip the problem in the bud when they had a working majority in Parliament means future solutions run into the political problem that any significant increase in supply of land may push many with recent mortgages such as in Auckland into negative equity.
Since they left office in 2008, leaving land supply regulation in a mess, the approach of Labour has been political opportunism rather than supporting RMA reform.
Labour recently admitted the need to increase the supply of land, but have not put forward practical ideas to increase the supply of land.
The National Party is not much better in terms of real solutions to regulatory constraints on the supply of land.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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