05/29/2026
The Middle Class Is Quietly Cashing Out
For some time now, I’ve been studying the loss of the middle class. Sometimes intentionally. Sometimes accidentally.
Recently, my son and I stayed in Sherkston during the "off-season". Midweek. Very quiet. Hardly anyone there - cheap rental.
Honestly, I had no issue pulling him out of school for a few days so we could spend time together. Life moves fast, and lately I’ve realized something important: I work where I live and live where I work. I never really leave. And at some point you realize you actually need to have a life too.
While we were there, I noticed something immediately.
For sale signs everywhere.
Not one or two. A significant number of them.
And the park itself was nearly empty.
That matters.
Because if you bought one of those trailers years ago thinking it was a smart investment — maybe a vacation property, maybe a rental income stream, maybe even part of your retirement plan — the math suddenly looks very different when there are only a few profitable months a year and no guarantees anyone rents during off-season periods.
And that’s before the wear and tear.
The people we rented from specifically mentioned how often units get trashed. Damage. Cleanup. Repairs. Constant headaches. More costs. More stress.
So naturally, I became curious.
I went online and started looking through listings to see what ownership actually costs and whether something like this would even make sense anymore. I started at the most expensive listings and worked my way all the way to the last page because I wanted to understand the full picture — the quality differences, the descriptions, the psychology behind the listings, and the pricing.
And one listing caught my attention immediately.
The description still said “aggressively priced to sell at $99,000” — except the actual asking price had already been reduced to $69,000.
A $30,000 drop.
And they hadn’t even updated the description.
That tells you something.
People don’t slash prices like that unless pressure is building.
Now obviously, Sherkston alone isn’t a perfect representation of the entire Canadian economy. I understand that.
But I don’t think this is isolated either.
Recently, I was having great conversations with one of my customers who works in real estate and clearly spends a lot of time researching market trends. She showed me official reporting suggesting the real estate market had only dropped around 5% over the past year.
And maybe technically that’s true on paper.
But I don’t believe numbers like that fully capture what’s actually happening to ordinary people.
Because what I think we’re really witnessing is something much bigger:
The middle class needing their money back.
That’s the part I don’t think enough people are talking about.
For years, the middle class survived by stretching.
Stretching into bigger mortgages.
Stretching into recreational properties.
Stretching into financed lifestyles.
Stretching into debt while hoping future income would continue rising forever.
But now?
Food costs more.
Insurance costs more.
Utilities cost more.
Vehicles cost more.
Repairs cost more.
Interest costs more.
Life costs more.
And suddenly people are looking around at everything they own asking one question:
“Can I actually afford to keep this?”
That changes markets very quickly.
Not because people suddenly want less.
But because they need liquidity.
And for some people, this isn’t even about selling off the extras anymore. It’s about trying not to lose the house. The middle class has been carrying so much debt for so long that many families are now one serious setback away from everything unraveling.
And I think we’re only beginning to see what happens when a large portion of the middle class starts trying to recover cash at the same time.
Not luxury wealth, not billionaire wealth.
The wealthy aren’t panicking right now. Many of them are sitting on cash, waiting. Waiting for assets to fall further. Waiting for distressed sales. Waiting for people who can no longer hold on.
Because the people with liquidity know something important:
We probably haven’t hit the bottom yet.
Middle-class wealth.
The trailers.
The cottages.
The side investments.
The financed toys.
The “someday” properties.
The things people bought during years when optimism felt safer than caution.
Now many of those same people are quietly trying to exit.
Not because they failed.
But because the margin is gone.
And when enough people lose margin at the same time, you don’t just get a market correction.
You get a societal shift.
