The Russian development market has entered a new phase: the model in which the city apartment was the main and almost uncontested product for the investor has weakened; preferential mortgages no longer drive demand as they used to; market mortgages remain expensive; buyers have become more cautious; developers are growing unsold; and private investors are increasingly comparing the apartment not only to another apartment, but also to a deposit, bonds, an apartment hotel, a resort unit, glamping and a share of the tourist business.
For a developer, it's not a reason to quit; it's a reason to change products. Classic urban housing is a market, but it doesn't guarantee the same sales rate and investment logic. The next growth point may be not just in the city, but in resort areas, where real estate works simultaneously as a recreational, profitable asset, element of medical tourism, wellness environment and part of a new lifestyle.
1.The city apartment is no longer the only investment model
For a long time, a city apartment was the most understandable investment asset for a Russian buyer, and the logic was simple: the city grew, people moved, the work was concentrated in megacities, tenants were always there, mortgages helped buy, and real estate became more expensive. For a developer, it was a convenient model: build a housing complex, sell apartments to private buyers, investors and families, then move to the next site.
But this pattern began to change: The massive subsidized mortgages that supported the new-build market were completed on July 1, 2024, and demand became much more sensitive to market rates, household incomes, and the buyer’s real solvency. As early as August 2024, RBC wrote that experts estimated that demand for new-builds had declined after the cancellation of the preferential program from 20% to a multiple drop on certain indicators, especially on applications for housing under construction.
In 2026, the market is already living in a new reality, not a short-term shock: according to the Central Bank, in March 2026, mortgages rose to 330 billion rubles after 290 billion rubles in February, but the regulator described growth as moderate, and the dynamics of household debt on mortgages – weak.
2.The problem of the developer: they can build, but it has become harder to sell
Russian developers are still strong as an industry, with design teams, contractors, banks, manufacturing facilities, building, marketing and sales competencies, and it's not that developers have lost their skills to build. It's that the old product has become harder to sell.
The market is accumulating unsold housing, and Izvestia reported in March 2026 that the total new-build sales fell from 47 percent in February 2021 to 42 percent in 2022, to 34 percent in 2024, and settled at 32 percent in 2025-2026, meaning that a significant portion of the volume under construction is not finding a buyer quickly, and the developer is putting pressure on financing, sales and project loan servicing.
Another indicator gives a similar picture: The expert in April 2026 wrote that the proportion of apartments that did not find a buyer in renting out by the end of 2026 could reach 35-40%, which is called the highest level of the current decade, and the overstock trend is difficult to reverse, because despite the large unsold runoff, prices do not fall quickly.
There's a key fork in this, where a developer can wait for a low-cost mortgage to come back and a buyer to come back, and can use their expertise in a new segment where real estate is sold not just as a square meter, but as part of the future economy of the territory.
3.The investor started to count the yield, not just meters
Private equity has become more rational. In the past, a city apartment was seen as almost a must-have: bought, rented, kept capital. Now, an investor compares it to alternatives. If the apartment is expensive, the mortgage is expensive, the rent gives a moderate return, and repairs, downtime, taxes and wear and tear reduce the result, the question is: why buy another apartment when there are other tools?
Against this background, resort real estate gets a new chance. Apart-unit, hotel room, glamping house or a share in a project JSC can give the investor not only income, but also personal use, recreation, the opportunity to come by yourself, rent the object through the management company and participate in the growth of the value of the territory.
The city apartment sells the need to live near work. The resort property sells another product: live in the natural environment, work remotely, recover, relax, rent out the property in periods of absence and own an asset in an area that can grow through tourism, service and infrastructure.
4. Remote work is changing the geography of demand
Remote and hybrid work is an important factor in the new market, which does not destroy offices, but weakens the rigid binding of a person to the place of work. According to VTSIOM, in 2025 a quarter of working Russians were fully or partially working from home; this is 6 percentage points more than in 2022. In four years, the attractiveness of full remote has doubled, from 8% to 16%, and hybrid format – from 23% to 34%.
It's a big shift in the real estate market, where if you can work from outside the office, you can choose your place of life differently, and you need the Internet, security, service, accessibility, medicine, the environment, nature, cafes, sports, routes, and the ability to combine work with recovery.
So a new type of buyer emerges: a person who doesn't want to leave the city for good, but wants to have a second place of life, who can live in Moscow, Novosibirsk, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Kazan or abroad, but spend part of the year in Altai, who can buy not a classic cottage, but a managed unit: he came, lived, worked, recovered, left — the object was again handed over through the management company.
This is stronger than conventional renting, where real estate becomes not only a passive asset, but also a lifestyle tool.
5 Demography weakens the endless growth of ordinary cities
Another strategic factor is demography: we can no longer automatically assume that cities will grow indefinitely just because they are cities, that in developed countries, fertility is declining, that population is aging, and that in some economies, population has already begun to decline.
The UN World Population Prospects 2024 indicates that China, due to its population size and persistently low birth rate, is likely to record the largest population decline among countries. Our World in Data, reviewing the UN forecast, also notes that China's population has already peaked and is declining due to a prolonged fall in fertility below the level of simple replacement.
So this is an important lesson for development: if the population doesn't grow fast, you can't build the same urban square meters indefinitely and wait for automatic demand, and there will be increased competition between cities, neighborhoods, real estate formats and lifestyles.
In Russia, too, demographics limit long-term demand, which does not mean that people will stop buying, but it means that developers will increasingly struggle not for an abstract growing market, but for a specific buyer with a specific motivation.
6 Automation is changing the role of the city as a place of work
The classic city grew around jobs, manufacturing, offices, warehouses, commerce, administration and services created a daily concentration of people, but automation and robotics are slowly changing that pattern.
The share of robotic processes in manufacturing is growing, and in office work, the role of artificial intelligence and automation of typical functions is increasing, and it doesn't mean that people will stop working, but it does mean that part of the work will become less tied to a particular place.
The city of the future will not disappear, but it will lose its monopoly on work as the main magnet, and if you used to go to where you have an office or a factory, now some people will choose a place based on a different criterion: where to live, recover, raise children, relax, socialize, play sports and stay healthy.
And that's why resort areas have a new economic role, and they can become not just a vacation destination, but a place of periodic life.
7 Wellness and medical tourism are becoming a major global economy
The growth in demand for resort areas is not just about remote work; the major shift in the world is the growth of the economy of health, recovery and quality of life.
The Global Wellness Institute estimates the global wellness market at $6.8 trillion in 2024. According to GWI, the market has grown 7.9 percent in a year and more than doubled since 2013. It's no longer a niche of spa and fitness. It's the huge economy of sleep, nutrition, prevention, mental health, active longevity, wellness real estate and wellness tourism.
The WHO estimates that depression and anxiety affect the global economy at about $1 trillion a year due to productivity loss. Another WHO report finds that mental health issues affect performance, families, companies and society, and that depression and anxiety are becoming a major economic problem rather than a private weakness.
For Altai, it's a matter of principle: the demand for recovery, anti-stress, sleep, movement, cleansing, RDI, psychological relief, health lectures and energy recovery programs can be seasonal, but year-round. People are not only tired in summer. Burnout, anxiety, depression, excess weight, insomnia and energy loss are not affected by the tourist season.
8 What does it mean for a developer?
So the developer has a new challenge: not just to build another apartment complex, not just to build another hotel by the river, but to create a product that responds to new demand.
Such a product should connect land, architecture, management, medical or wellness core, tourist routes, services, restaurants, swimming pools, bath complexes, sports, clubs, lecture programs, glampings, excursions and a professional management company.
A typical city apartment is sold as a square meter, a resort unit is sold as part of the environment, and it's a fundamentally different level of development.
If a developer just builds an apartment in a beautiful location, they get a seasonal property with competition for price, and if they enter a resort ecosystem with a medical core, services, routes and a management company, they get a product that can be sold to the investor as a profitable asset and a personal place of recovery.
9 Why Altai is suitable for the new model
The Altai Republic has what a city cannot create: a rare natural environment, mountains, rivers, forests, air, silence, routes, ethno-cultural image and a strong emotional perception of the territory.
But a beautiful view alone does not create a sustainable economy. A tourist can come once, take photos and leave. High loads require reasons to stay longer: medicine, wellness, excursions, active programs, baths, swimming pools, restaurants, sports, lecture halls, clubs, children's formats, routes, events, glamping and the ability to change scenarios within the same territory.
And that's where the idea of a new kind of resort city comes from, not in the old industrial sense, where people live next to a factory or an office, but it's a resort ecosystem where people come to live, to relax, to be healed, to recover, to work remotely, to travel natural routes, to buy units, to take them over and to come back again.
10 Why it's not a replacement for urban construction, but a second line of growth
You can't say to a developer, "City building is done." That's wrong. Cities will be built, old housing will be renovated, infrastructure will be developed, migration to major centers will continue.
The correct thesis is that urban housing should no longer be the developer’s only strategy.
The market gets more complex, and the winner is the one who can create not only square meters, but also a new investment product, and the resort unit, the aparthotel, the glamping, the design company, the medical center and the management company give the developer a new opportunity: to build where real estate is backed by tourism, health, nature, service and international demand.
This is especially important for a developer when urban apartments are selling more slowly, project financing is expensive, and the buyer has become more cautious, and resort development may not be a side experiment, but a separate specialization.
New formula for the investor
The old formula was: buy an apartment in the city, rent it out, wait for the growth of the cost.
The new formula may sound different: buy a unit in the resort ecosystem, use it for personal recreation and remote work, transfer to management in periods of absence, receive income from loading, and participate in the growth of the value of the territory.
Another level is to invest not in a specific unit, but in a project JSC: a hotel, glamping, a medical center, a bath complex, a service company or a tour operator, then the investor receives not just real estate, but business shares and the right to participate in the distribution of profits.
It expands the market. One investor needs a personal unit. Another needs a stake in the business. Another needs land. A fourth needs a ready-made facility to manage. A fifth needs the ability to enter a project through an investment platform. A resort ecosystem allows different types of capital to be collected around the same territory.
12.A practical conclusion for Altai
The urban housing market is not disappearing, but it is no longer the only growth point, and once massive subsidized mortgages are completed, developers need to look for products that sell not just at the rate of the loan, but at the cost of meaning, environment, profitability, and future demand.
Altai can become such a destination if we develop not disparate hotels and not individual tourist centers, but resort ecosystems of a new type, which should connect land, developers, management companies, medical operators, glampings, apart-units, service centers, routes, foreign tourism and investment platforms.
The main conclusion for the developer: the next growth market may not be in the next urban residential quarter, but in the creation of managed resort areas, where real estate becomes part of the economy of health, recreation, remote work and long-term land capitalization.
The post-mortgage development market requires a new look at real estate, and the city apartment remains a clear asset, but its investment power is not as clear as it used to be, with expensive mortgages, cautious buyers, unsold housing accumulation, demographic constraints, and the rise of remote work changing demand.
Against this background, resort real estate is becoming a new value: a unit in an apart hotel, a glamping house, a hotel room or a share in a projected joint-stock company can become for an investor not just a purchase of real estate, but a participation in the new economy: health, recreation, nature, remote work, services, management and growth of the value of the territory.
This is particularly important for the Altai Republic, where you can build not just new tourist centers, but resort cities of a new type: with a medical core, wellness programs, glamping, management companies, active routes and international tourist demand, and this model can become a new growth line for developers who know how to build, but are looking for a stronger market than overheated urban housing.