This talk opens the cycle and shows developers a major shift in the market: the old model of "built city apartments, sold, moved to the next site" has become harder, not because developers have lost their skills to build, but because the buyer, mortgage, sales speed and logic of investment demand have changed.
Resort real estate in the Altai Republic can become for the developer not a replacement for urban construction, but a second line of growth, especially if we are not talking about a single recreation center, but about the gradual creation of resort clusters with medical tourism, eco-tourism, glamping, apart-hotels, service centers and the growth of land value around the first stage.
So, my point is not to start with the beautiful views of Altai or the romance of resort development, but to start with a more practical question: what is happening with the urban model today.
Developers can build. Many have teams, technicians, contractors, experience, design solutions, ready-made apartments and understandable technology for bringing products to market. But increasingly, the problem is not within the construction site. The problem is on the demand side.
The city apartment has long been the most understandable real estate product: land, design, permit, construction, mortgage, sales, and it worked as long as the buyer could borrow, the investor believed in the price going up, and the market was absorbing new volumes, and now it's more complicated.
According to Dom.RF, mortgage demand in Russia fell 26% in quantitative terms and 9% in monetary terms in 2025, which means that the main channel for buying a home, the mortgage buyer, has become weaker. For a developer, this is not an abstract statistic, but a direct impact on the speed of implementation, balances, discounting and turnover of capital.
There are also feedback signals in the market: in some months, new home sales have recovered, and developer revenue has been growing for the year, but this does not change the main thing: demand has become more nervous, dependent on preferential programs, rate expectations and the buyer’s ability to service credit, the market is no longer simple and predictable.
For a developer, that means the main thing: the urban apartment is still a product, but it's no longer the only sustainable direction of growth. It's not enough to just build square meters today. You need to understand where the new demand will be, who will be the buyer and what will make the object more expensive after launch.
A city apartment is mostly locally marketed, and it's bought by people who live in that city, work in that city, want to move there, or expect to rent out, and it's a normal model, but it's limited by income, mortgage rates, demographics, competition, and the amount of housing that's already built.
Resort properties work differently: a resort unit, an aparthotel, a glamping or a modular house in a strong natural location are sold not only as a room, but as part of the scenario: recreation, health, rental income, personal use, family asset, participation in a developing territory and the possibility of capitalization.
In the city, the buyer often asks: how much is a square meter, what is the rate, when the change, what is the accessibility. In the resort project, the questions are different: who will manage the facility, who will provide the load, what services are nearby, whether there is a medical program, whether there is a flow of tourists, whether there is nature, whether the brand of the territory is, whether the value of the neighboring land will increase.
This is where Altai is fundamentally different from the usual urban development, where developers are more likely to enter the established market, and in Altai, a strong developer can participate in the creation of the market itself.
The Altai Republic already has a tourist flow, and by the end of 2025, the region has received 2.8 million tourists, not a hypothesis or a dream of the future, but an already existing demand, and much of the territory has not yet been decorated with quality resort products: with normal living, management, medical services, health programs, routes, services and international packaging.
At the federal level, tourism has also ceased to be a secondary industry: in January-November 2025, the number of tourist trips in Russia reached 82.9 million, which is 5% more than in the same period in 2024. The target for 2030 is 140 million tourist trips, which shows that the state, regions and the market will continue to move towards the development of domestic tourism.
But it is not only domestic tourism that matters to the developer, and inbound tourism is also recovering, according to the Ministry of Economic Development, the number of foreign tourist trips to Russia has risen to 5.6 million in two years, and the share of tourism in the country’s GDP by the preliminary results of 2025 has reached 3.1 percent, which is not the limit, but the basis on which to build export services.
Altai is interesting in this logic because it doesn't have to compete with cities for the average buyer of an apartment, it has to compete for another client: a person who wants nature, health, restoration, silence, route, experience, long rest and semantic environment. It's a different market, and it can be wider than the local housing market.
A city apartment is basically a product of living. A resort property is a product of staying. A place to live answers the question of where I'm going to live. A stay answers the question of why I'm coming here, what I'm going to get here, why I'm going to stay longer and why I want to come back.
So in a resort development, square meters are not the main commodity in themselves. The main commodity is the environment. If you have a medical center, health programs, a bath complex, routes, cafes, services, excursions, a management company and a clear concept of the territory, the unit or glamping sells more confidently.
And here comes a new model for a developer, who can not buy land at once for the full amount, can rent a large amount of land with the right to buy, fix the price of the ransom, build the first place and raise the value of the surrounding area. It's not just construction. It's land capitalization management.
The first stage of this model is the engine, and it shows the market that the territory is not abstract, and it already has a road, the first facilities, the service, the medical core, the people, the photos, the reviews, the download, the management company, and then the neighboring land is no longer seen as an empty field, and it becomes part of a growing resort cluster.
And that's the difference between a city project, where a developer is more likely to make money from the volume that's built, and in a resort cluster, he can make money from the volume that's built, unit sales, management, operating income, the value of the remaining land, and the queues that follow.
And here's the thing about the calculations: Many urban developers today have ready-made apartments that are hard to sell quickly without a discount, and for them, exchanging some of their land bills with city apartments may not be a problem, but a solution, and an apartment that is worthwhile and poorly sold becomes an entry ticket to a new, growing market.
It's a practical scheme. A developer releases a frozen asset, gets land for a resort, and the land is not a passive site, but a production base, and you can build glampings, aparthotels, units, modular homes, service buildings and medical tourism facilities.
And especially, if the partner is not entering an empty area, if the health center and service core are anchored, the partner has an increased upload capability, and they're not selling a single cabin in the forest, but a facility close to services, treatment, rehabilitation, routes and managed tourist flow.
This increases liquidity. It's easier for a buyer to make a decision when he sees not only a beautiful facade, but also a business model: who will rent the property, who will attract tourists, who will serve guests, what programs will create a long stay, why the object will be needed not only in the summer.
The global market has been moving in this direction for a long time, and glamping is growing as a separate segment: Grand View Research estimates that the global glamping market in 2025 was $3.79 billion and could grow to $7.87 billion by 2033, and the reason is clear: people want nature, but they don’t want to give up comfort anymore.
This is especially important for Altai, because you can't copy urban architecture and just take it to the mountains, but you have to have a resort property that's connected to the place: the view, the forest, the river, the silence, the route, the air, the bath, the restoration, the privacy and the service, the more accurately the object gets into the natural environment, the more valuable it is.
In this logic, 3D printing buildings can become not just a building technology, but part of architectural positioning. Sanatorium buildings, atriums, service pavilions, small shapes and individual buildings can get more expressive appearance, repeat faster and work better as a visual sign of the territory. But technology does not create business. Business creates a bunch of technology, land, service, tourist flow and management.
The basic thesis for developers is that today we need to look not only at where we can build, but also at where we can create new demand.
In the city, a developer often fights for a buyer inside an already overheated market, and in Altai, a developer can participate in the formation of a market where the price of a property depends not only on the cost of construction, but on the strength of the entire territory.
The resort cluster is not a hotel, a village, or a recreation center in the old sense. It's a system. It's a health center, a health center, a living center, a hotel, a hotel, a unit, a modular home, a small building, and then it's routes, food, service, bath complexes, excursions, management, sale and rent. On the outside, there's a rising cost of land, which increases as the project progresses.
It doesn't eliminate risk. There are risks: roads, engineering, seasonality, personnel, service, legal structure, governance, project quality, marketing. But these risks can be managed. Much worse is the risk of continuing to build only where the market is no longer as fast as it was.
The development business has always been the business of the future, and the developer doesn't make money off of what's already obvious to everyone, he makes money where he sees the next wave before the rest.
Today, such a wave can be a phased development of resort clusters of the Altai Republic: not single tourist centers, not chaotic houses, not random cottages, but system territories where land, construction, medical tourism, environmental tourism, management company and unit sales work together.
If a city apartment is becoming more and more difficult commodity, then a properly assembled resort unit can become an investment product of a new type.
Final thesis of the lecture
A city apartment sells space. A resort cluster sells space, health, nature, income, management and future capitalization.
This is the main pivot for a developer: not just build another house, but enter the territory where you can create a flow, raise the value of land and form a new market.
Short option for performing on stage
Today, a developer needs to look honestly at the market: a city apartment is no longer an automatic sales machine; mortgages have become more difficult, buyers are more cautious, investment demand is weaker, and competition is higher.
Altai offers a different model: you can build not just square meters, but resort areas, land is rented out, the price is fixed, the first stage creates a stream, the medical center gives load, partners build accommodation, and the neighboring land increases in value.
This is not a theory: the tourist flow to the Altai Republic has already reached 2.8 million people a year, domestic tourism in Russia is growing, inbound tourism is recovering, and the global demand for nature, health and comfort is increasing.
The question for the developer is simple: to continue working only in the urban apartment market or to take a place in the emerging Altai resort real estate market, the second direction should be opened now.