The project partner cities (Praha, Leipzig, Sopot, Bolzano, Celje, Presov) face severe problems in parts of their urban areas. Economic decline, vacancies and decay lead to social tension and segregation. Consequently these areas of privately owned housing have become unattractive to real estate investors. A downwards spiral of weak financial capacities and spreading decay has lead to market failure in housing, worsened by lacking capacities of private owners to take action (e.g. knowledge on financing possibilities, missing property concepts). In reaction and to break this downward spiral the EPOurban partners aim to sensitize, activate and mobilize private owners by consulting services.EPOurban partners identified private owners as key actors and together elaborated the concept of a consulting system to initiate private investment. Whereas public or private housing companies are usually able to take the adequate measures, single private owners often lack the necessary resources and skills. Their property remains as it is and fails to meet the new needs. As the majority of Central European residential buildings belong to single private owners, this poses a severe threat to social stability, economic growth and ecological effectiveness of Central European cities and regions. Cities are aware that they have to implement integrated strategies to meet the challenges of social and demographic change. They know that housing is a key element within these strategies. Yet they don’t have the possibility to act on the private sector of housing market. They are dependent on the private owners’ willingness and ability to cooperate and to invest. This is one of the most crucial bottlenecks of urban development. So much the worse that instruments are still missing to integrate private owners into urban restructuring processes. EPOurban wants to meet this challenge and foster successful housing market and urban development under the conditions of social and demographic change. Achievements: Rapid social & demographic change in Central European transformation cities exposes residential areas to an extreme pressure to adapt. As a consequence the cities are faced with dysfunctional residential areas & are in urgent need of integrated development strategies. Private owners often lack sufficient capabilities for a convenient development of their property. These obstacles aggravate as the location of a building is problematic or the ownership structures are complicated. The integration of private owners of residential buildings into the overall revitalisation strategies is essential for urban development. EPOurban attempts to remove this bottleneck by implementing innovative methods in combination with well-established instruments. 7 Central European cities are participating in EPOurban: Leipzig (DE), Prague (CZ), Sopot (PL), Bratislava (SK), Bolzano (IT), the Regional Development Association Voitsberg (AT) & Celje (SL). The Aufbauwerk (DE) & the Academia Istropolitana Nova (SK) support the project scientifically. EPOurban aims at integrating private building owners of the chosen target areas in the urban renewal process & to counsel them in the fields of urban regeneration by local architects, property specialists & other experts. After the launch of the project in Sept. 2011 the 9 partners met for the 1st time in November 2011 in Leipzig. During 2 days they discussed the content & implementation of the project. Subsequently, the A.I. Nova elaborated a methodology for the establishment of a common triangulation report where the pre-conditions in the partner cities & their target areas are analyzed & compared. The partners collected data on economic, socio-cultural & demographic aspects as well as the legal framework & status quo. The first results were presented & discussed at the Triangulation Workshop in Svätý Jur in April 2012. It became clear that the pre-conditions are quite different in the target areas. Some of the partners share more of the same challenges & could therefore learn from each other. During the Mid-term Conference in October 2012 in Sopot the first results of the project & the triangulation were presented to the public. Subsequently, the partners worked on defining quality benchmarks for consulting which were integrated in a consulting pre-conditions report. Based on it, target areas were identified in the partner cities & consulting offers announced. Consultants were identified & in 2 consultation phases consulting cases will be executed in the target areas. The 1st phase was launched in spring 2013. After finalizing the 1st consulting phase the experiences will be exchanged & evaluated & good practices transferred within the 1st EPOurbanAcademy in late 2013. After that, a 2nd consulting phase will follow the results of which will be exchanged in a 2nd EPOurban Academy in 2014 & feed into the EPO Policy Paper & a blended learning tool. Both will be ready to use for successful application in other European cities.