Singapore’s home prices will probably fall further before the housing curbs introduced in the past five years are scaled back, Standard Chartered Plc’s Southeast Asia head said.

“You would start to take away some of these measures if price growth reaches a certain level of equilibrium,” Lim Cheng Teck, chief executive officer for Asean or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said in an interview in Singapore yesterday. “I don’t think we are at an equilibrium yet.”

The city’s private home prices dropped by the most in almost five years following a campaign that started in 2009 to curb property market speculation, with government curbs ranging from taxes on property sales, additional levies on foreign buyers and mortgage limits.

Lim declined to predict how much of a downside he expects for home prices before housing measures would be lifted. Monetary Authority of Singapore Managing Director Ravi Menon said on May 24 that the property measures may not be permanent and will only be used from time to time, the Business Times reported, citing a speech.

Under Singapore’s loan framework, lenders must consider a borrower’s total debt when granting mortgages, the Monetary Authority, which is the central bank, said last year. A borrower’s loan repayments, including mortgages, shouldn’t exceed 60% of income, based on the policy guidelines.