CapitaLand, Singapore’s biggest developer, said government measures to curb property speculation are “incremental” and will help the real estate market development sustainably over the long term.

Singapore raised down payment requirements in August for second mortgages and imposed a stamp duty on homes held for less than three years to curb speculation after prices surged. It will sell 17 residential sites in the first half of 2011, matching the record land sales in the second half this year, it said yesterday.

“You must let the government test the market with incremental measures and see the results,” Liew Mun Leong, CapitaLand’s chief executive officer, said in an interview in Singapore yesterday. “If you’re a long-term player, you’d want the government to do something incremental if there’s overheating. You don’t want something big to kill the market.”

Singapore and Asian markets including Hong Kong, Taiwan and China imposed measures including higher down payments this year to cool their property markets amid concerns that asset bubbles are forming. Home prices in Singapore climbed for five quarters to a record in the three months ended Sept 30 as the island forecasts a record 15% expansion this year.

CapitaLand shares have fallen 6.8% since the government announced its measures on Aug. 30, compared with a 7.5% advance in the benchmark Straits Times Index.

The central bank said yesterday low borrowing costs and excess liquidity globally may push the property prices higher again, setting back efforts to cool the market.