This lecture explains the practical model of an urban developer entering Altai resort development: Many developers have finished or near-finished apartments that sell more slowly than planned, borrow capital, require maintenance, put pressure on the financial model, and prevent a new cycle from starting quickly.
The proposed model allows the use of such apartments as part of the settlement of land or the right of entry into the resort project. The developer frees up the frozen city asset and receives land in a growing tourist area where you can build glampings, aparthotels, units, service facilities and sell not just square meters, but participation in the resort cluster.
Colleagues, the urban developer today has a problem that's not always talked about in public, and part of the product that's been built has started to move more slowly.
It doesn't mean that no one wants apartments. Housing remains a basic need. But the market has become harder. The buyer is more careful. Mortgages are more expensive. Installments are longer. Marketing is more expensive. Buying decisions are slower.
According to RBC, citing “Dom.RF”, in 2025, the volume of mortgage issuance was almost a third lower than the level of 2024, and market mortgage rates, despite a decrease during the year, remained protective – above 21%, while the share of preferential programs in the total issuance of mortgages exceeded 80%, which shows the dependence of the market on special support mechanisms.
For the developer, this means a simple thing: the previous model of rapid sale of apartments through a mortgage has become less predictable.
The market has begun to adapt, and the role of installments, self-dealing, special programs, and individual conditions has grown, but adaptation is not easy. If the apartment is sold through long installments, capital returns more slowly; if the apartment is sold at a discount, margins fall; if the object is leftover, it freezes the result of the work already done.
This is particularly painful for a developer. He's already built. He's already invested. He's already done design, construction, banking, sales, advertising, and input. But the finished product doesn't always turn into real money quickly.
In this situation, the apartment becomes more than just a commodity; it becomes a frozen asset.
You can wait with it. You can give discounts. You can increase advertising. You can offer installments. You can try to hold the price. But there's another option: use this asset as a tool to enter a new market.
It is here that the model of exchanging urban real estate for land for resort development appears.
The idea is simple: the developer pays off some of the apartments for land, for rent, foreclosure, or for entry into the project, and in return, he gets not just a plot, but the production base for the new product: resort units, aparthotels, glamping towns, service buildings, and accommodation near the medical core.
It's not bartering for barter. It's a way to turn capital around.
The remnants of a city apartment are a finished but slow-moving product, and land in a growing resort area is an asset that can be used to create a new development cycle.
The difference is fundamental.
The apartment is waiting for the buyer. The land, if modeled right, creates the future buyer.
When the first stage, the medical center, the atrium of services, glamping, aparthotels, routes, the bath complex and the management company, comes on the ground, the territory starts to produce new value. It doesn't just increase the price of the facilities built. It increases the price of the surrounding land.
In a city apartment, this effect is limited. An apartment can go up in price if the market, the neighborhood, inflation or demand rises. But the developer himself, after completing the house, often no longer manages the growth of the value of a particular apartment. In a resort cluster, the developer can manage the value of the territory through each new queue.
That is why the exchange of urban apartments for land can be beneficial for both parties.
For the landlord, it's a way to get a liquid city asset that you can use, sell, rent, exchange or hold, and for the developer, it's a way to get into a new territory without paying full cash at the start.
But it's important not to oversimplify, because this model requires legal purity.
You need to determine exactly what is being transferred: apartments, claims, finished objects, registered objects, shares, non-residential premises or other assets, and you need to assess their market value, liquidity, legal purity, encumbrances, mortgages, liens, transfer dates, taxes and netting.
It is also necessary to determine exactly what the developer receives: land lease, the right to redeem, a fixed price for redemption, the order of payments, the right to build, the right to sell units, building rules, restrictions, engineering conditions and the procedure for leaving the project.
Without it, the model could become a conflict.
But if it is designed professionally, it gives the developer a strong tool.
Now, it's important to talk about this openly, because the high cost of money is driving developers to look not only for new sites, but also for new forms of settlement, and cash settlement is not always the best option if the developer already has ready-made assets that don't give the right turnover rate.
Apartments can be turned into land.
But only if the land has a real perspective.
Not every land is good for this exchange. A developer doesn't just need a site in a beautiful place. He needs an array that can be queued up, and he needs a territory that has a clear logic: tourist flow, medical core, access, natural value, accommodation, service area, engineering concept, legal model and value growth.
That's why Altai is interesting.
The Altai Republic already has a tourist demand, with 2.8 million tourists in 2025, meaning that the developer is not entering a void, but a real flow area, but this flow is not yet fully structured with quality resort products.
At the federal level, tourism also remains a priority, with the state target of 140 million tourist trips across Russia by 2030, creating a long-term backdrop for investment in tourism infrastructure, accommodation and resort areas.
For the developer, this means that land in Altai can become not a passive asset, but a platform for new demand.
Especially if a health and wellness center is being built nearby.
The usual glamping site has one level of liquidity: the site next to the medical center, the sanatorium program, the atrium of services, the routes and the management company has a different level of liquidity, and there is not only nature, but also a reason to come.
It's important for unit sales.
The buyer of a resort unit doesn't want to buy a facility that will stand idle; he wants to understand who will provide the load, who will drive, why people will come, what will happen in low season, how the territory will grow, whether you can relax and earn income at the same time.
If the facility is located near the medical core and is managed in a single system, the answers become more convincing.
So, the developer, who received the land through the settlement of apartments, can create a product of a higher class: not just houses, but units in the resort cluster.
Here you need to clearly show the difference between selling a city apartment and selling a resort unit.
A city apartment is sold to a person who needs a home, or to an investor who expects to rent and increase in price, and that buyer is limited by mortgage, income, place of work, city, rate and market expectations.
The resort unit is sold more widely, it can be bought by a resident of another region, an investor who wants profitable real estate, a family who wants a holiday destination, an entrepreneur who understands tourism, a person who believes in the growth of Altai, a buyer who cares about nature and restoration, and in the future, a foreign client if the project is packaged for export.
The city apartment has one main scenario: live or rent. The resort unit has more scenarios: rest yourself, take through the operator, use for the family, come to medical programs, resell at a more mature stage of the project, hold as an asset in a growing territory.
It expands the market.
So the developer gets not just land instead of apartments, but the chance to move from the local housing market to the resort real estate market and services.
But this model requires a different management culture.
In a city, a developer often builds a facility, sells apartments, and goes out, and in a resort cluster, it's dangerous to do that. If you sell units and leave, the area quickly loses quality. You need a management company. You need operating rules. You need appearance standards. You need a reservation system. You need services. You need a marketing program.
Otherwise, the holiday product will break up.
This needs to be explained to partners in advance, because they're not in a free, chaotic land, but in a managed resort cluster, which imposes restrictions, but these constraints protect the value of their asset.
If every unit owner does what they want, the price of the entire area will drop, and if all the units work together, the price will go up.
From a developer's perspective, it's a familiar thing, because the city has rules for facades, landscaping, management, operation and common property, and in a resort, these rules are even more important, because the buyer pays for the atmosphere of the place.
The exchange of apartments for land can be used as the first stage of the partnership.
For example, a developer transfers some of the apartments to the project entry account, gets a plot or a right to develop the first stage, builds a glamping city or an aparthotel, sells units, sends some of the proceeds to buy the land, develops the rest of the territory in the next queues.
If the price of the land redemption is fixed in advance, the developer gets an additional advantage, the first step increases the value of the adjacent territory, but the price of the redemption is already known, the difference between the new market price and the fixed entry price becomes a source of profit.
It's a strong model.
It's especially suitable for developers who have building expertise, but there are constraints on current liquidity, and they don't have to start by buying land in full for real money, but they can use what they already have: ready-made apartments, teams, designers, builders, procurement links, sales experience and construction management.
Altai gives them a new market for the application of this expertise.
Of course, a resort is different from a city house, you can't just copy a typical section, you need different layouts, different materials, different attitudes to the view, privacy, routes, distances, silence, parking, service and seasonality.
But the construction discipline of an urban developer is very useful, and many tourist projects are weak precisely because they are done without a development school: there is no budget, no timeline, no design, engineering, operation, and quality control, and a city developer can bring that discipline to a resort area.
It's mutual benefit.
Altai needs strong developers. Developers need new markets.
The apartment model combines these interests.
It's also important to understand the psychology of the partner, because the city developer doesn't have to feel like he's being called on a risky adventure, but he has to show that he's going into the project in a very clear way: land, foreclosure, fixed price, first line, medical anchor, management company, unit sales, rising value in the surrounding area.
The clearer the structure, the higher the chance of a deal.
Therefore, for the conference, you need to speak not only beautifully, but also specifically.
What assets can be taken into account. How will the value of apartments be determined, how is the title to land issued, how is the price of foreclosure fixed, what are the queues of construction, who is responsible for the medical core, who builds the accommodation, who manages the loading, how are the revenues distributed, how are the interests of the parties protected.
Without these questions, the developer will not make a decision.
But if there are answers, the sentence becomes strong.
It gives the developer a way out of a situation where the finished apartments are hard to turn into money; instead of waiting, he gets movement; instead of the balance on the balance sheet, land; instead of the local buyer of the apartment, a market for tourists, investors and buyers of resort units; instead of one sale, a phased capitalization of the territory.
That's the capital reversal.
We need to be honest about the risks.
The first risk is overvaluation of apartments, and if apartments are accepted at a price that is higher than the real liquid value, conflict will quickly emerge.
The second risk is land overvalue, and if the land doesn't have a clear scenario, the developer doesn't get the asset, it gets the problem.
The third risk is the lack of management, and without a management company, resort units are meaningless as a profitable product.
The fourth risk is legal ambiguity, and if the lease, foreclosure, development and sale rights are not clearly defined, the project will stop.
Fifth risk is a weak first, and if the first one doesn't build trust, it doesn't raise the value of the territory.
These risks need not be hidden; they need to be covered by the structure of the deal.
A professional developer respects honesty, and he understands that risks are not only in presentations, but in real business, there are always risks, and the question is whether they are manageable or not.
In the proposed model, risks are managed if the project is put together correctly.
The land is not randomly taken, but under a master plan. The price of the ransom is fixed. The first stage is chosen to quickly show demand. The medical nucleus creates the load; the management company takes over the operation and sale of the residence. The legal model prescribes the rights of the parties. The apartments are accepted according to an agreed assessment and understandable transfer mechanism.
Exchange becomes not a forced measure, but a financial instrument.
This can be especially valuable for a developer at a time when the housing market is looking for a balance between mortgages and installments, and a joint study by NKR, Dom.RF, and ERZ in April 2026 found that installment payments for 2022-2025 have gone from being a niche tool to one of the key ways to pay for primary housing, meaning that the cash flow of urban housing has become more stretched and complex.
The resort model does not eliminate these problems, but it gives a different way of using assets.
If the apartment is sold slowly, it can become a settlement tool; if the land is queued up, it can be a source of new value; if a medical center is built nearby, units get loaded; if the territory grows, the next queues sell more expensive.
This is how the frozen asset becomes a development platform.
We're not suggesting that developers give up urban development, we're proposing a second line of business, that urban apartments remain part of the market, but that some of the capital that's stuck in the finished facilities can be channeled into the growing tourism and medical segment.
Altai is suitable for this, because several factors coincide here: a natural brand, growing tourism, a shortage of quality resort clusters, the possibility of phased land development, medical tourism, interest in glamping and apart-hotels, as well as the potential of inbound tourism.
For a developer, it's not just a chance to sell leftovers, it's a chance to change product class.
From a city apartment to a unit in a resort cluster, from local demand to tourist flow, from one-off sale to a phased capitalization, from a frozen asset to a new growth territory.
Final thesis of the lecture
City apartments, which are difficult to quickly implement today, may not be a problem, but a tool for entering the resort development of Altai.
If you take them as part of the settlements for land, the developer gets the opportunity to free the frozen asset, enter a large area, build in queues, sell resort units and earn on the growth of the value of the adjacent land.
The main condition is the professional structure of the transaction: asset valuation, legal purity, fixed redemption price, master plan, medical anchor, management company and strong first line.
Short option for performing on stage
Many developers today have finished apartments that are selling more slowly than before. It's not a dead asset, but it's a slow-moving asset.
We propose using these apartments as part of the settlement of land in Altai, where the developer transfers the urban product, which is difficult to implement quickly, and gets entry into the resort area: rent with the right of foreclosure, fixed price, first of all construction and the ability to create a new product.
You can build glampings, aparthotels, units and service facilities on this land next to the medical core. The first stage creates flow. The flow increases trust. Trust increases the price of units. The built-up part increases the value of the adjacent land.
So the apartment, which stood in the remains, turns into an entrance ticket to the growing market of resort real estate.