Pige, the practice of calling private sellers from their classified ads, is no longer legal in France without the seller's prior consent. Since 11 August 2026, consumers can only be canvassed by phone if they opted in. The real estate agent's phone is not dead, though: consented sellers, existing clients, inbound leads and professional contacts remain, and the agencies adapting fastest are already winning the mandates the others lost.

What changed on 11 August 2026

Until this summer, B2C phone prospecting in France was opt-out: you could call any number not registered on Bloctel. The law of 30 June 2025 flipped it to opt-in. A consumer must have given prior, express consent before being canvassed by phone, unless the call concerns a contract already in force.

A seller who published an ad with a phone number did not consent to agency calls. The number is there for buyers. Treat classic cold pige as closed.

The earlier rules still frame the calls that remain allowed: weekdays only, 10am to 1pm and 2pm to 8pm, no more than four attempts per 30 days, a 60-day pause after a refusal, and a real, identifiable caller number. The DGCCRF enforces; fines are public.

None of this is legal advice. Read the DGCCRF guidance and have your network's counsel validate your process.

The four lanes of real estate prospecting that remain open

1. Consented sellers

Consent has to be explicit, documented and specific. An estimate form on your website with a clear "call me" box. A portal where the seller ticks agency contact. A referral who agreed to be called. Build these channels now; they are your new pige.

2. Existing clients and known contacts

Your CRM has every buyer you placed, every seller whose mandate expired, every estimate you gave that went nowhere. These people know you. In our analysis of 1,000,000 B2B cold calls in France, a call to a known contact opened with "How have you been?" succeeds around 10% of the time versus 1.5% for a standard cold open. Most teams use about 20% of the signals already in their CRM.

3. Inbound leads, within minutes

A seller who requests an estimate is hot for an hour. The agency that calls first usually gets the visit. Build a rule: inbound lead, call within five minutes, every time, during legal hours.

4. Professionals (B2B)

Developers, property managers, notaries, companies relocating employees, investors, builders with land: all professionals, all reachable under GDPR legitimate interest with an opt-out. Founders of SMEs pick up around 10am in our data; across personas 4pm connects at 15.8%.

The call structure for a consented or known seller

1. Identify. Name, agency, professional card holder. One sentence.
2. Name the reason. "You asked for an estimate on Tuesday" or "We talked in March about your flat in Villeurbanne."
3. Ask permission to continue. Then stop talking.
4. Two "how" questions. "How is the sale going so far?" "How did you set the price?" Discovery questions starting with "how" lift conversion by 190% in our benchmark.
5. Ask for a visit, not a mandate. "Can I come by Thursday at 6pm for 20 minutes and give you a second opinion on the price?"

The objections are old friends: "I'm selling alone", "I already have an agency", "your fees are too high". Before answering, ask "What do you mean?". That one reflex lifts conversion by 197% in our data, and it usually reveals the real issue (a bad experience, a fee misunderstanding, a deadline).

The B2B script for developers and property managers

This is cold calling as the rest of B2B knows it, and the same rules apply. 65% of reps open by explaining what they sell and book 2-3% of conversations; trigger openers book 7-10%.

Triggers in real estate are public: a building permit, a new program announced, a management company that just took over a building, a company opening an office in your city. "Hi Thomas, Benoit from [agency]. I saw the permit for your 24-unit program in Mérignac." Then a "how" question about their sales plan.

Persistence pays. In our experience, most connects happen within the first three attempts.

GDPR and data hygiene for agencies

• Keep the consent proof (date, source, wording) on the contact record. "Show me" is the first thing an inspector says.
• Inform contacts where their data came from and how to opt out, within a month of collection.
• Honor opt-outs immediately and log them; do not rely on memory.
• Set a retention period for prospect data and purge.
• If you record calls, say so at the start and state why.

How Sonik approaches real estate phone prospecting

Sonik is a B2B dialer. For agencies and networks, the fit is lanes 2 and 4: working the CRM and the professional market. Signals surface dormant contacts, expired mandates and closed-lost sellers so the day starts with known people, and parallel dialing gives agents 5x more conversations on B2B lists.

For consented seller lists, our rule is simple: only load contacts whose consent is documented, keep the proof on the record, and use the call log as your audit trail. We are not a compliance tool and we do not replace your counsel.

Conclusion

Cold pige is over; prospecting is not. Consent channels, your own CRM, five-minute inbound callbacks and the professional market are the four lanes left, and they are better lanes. This week, export every estimate you gave in the last 12 months that did not become a mandate and call them at 10am with "How have you been?".