There’s a particular kind of financial dread that hits when you’re lying awake at 2 a.m. doing math in your head, and every version of the math comes out bad. That’s where u/liverly found themselves when they posted to r/personalfinance with the subject line: “I bought a house and I don’t know what to do.”
The short version: $440K house. 100% commission income. And an industry that decided to fall off a cliff about six months after closing.
The Purchase That Made Sense (At the Time)
On paper, the buy looked reasonable. u/liverly had earned $169K in 2025 working in commission-based sales. A $440K house on that income isn’t reckless by any traditional metric. The CFPB’s general guidance on qualifying for a mortgage would put that well within range for most lenders.
"I bought a house in August for $440K. I'm 100% commission based in sales and made $169K this year. The industry I'm in has taken a nosedive in the last 6 months and I'm barely covering my expenses."
— u/liverly on r/personalfinance
That word “barely” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. When your income is 100% commission, “barely covering expenses” means you’re one slow month away from not covering them at all.
And then the house started breaking.
"I've had about $11,000 in unexpected repairs. The plumbing keeps breaking. I'm down to about $20K in savings and I have $32K in a Roth IRA that I really don't want to touch."
— u/liverly on r/personalfinance
Eleven grand in repairs in under six months. Plumbing that keeps breaking — not broke once, keeps breaking. And a savings cushion that’s shrinking fast with no clear floor on when the income recovers.
”I Feel Like I Made a Huge Mistake”
The comments section was full of the usual mix of tough love and genuine advice. But what stood out was u/liverly’s own assessment of where things stood:
"I'm considering selling and going back to renting. I'm starting a second job. This feels like it was a huge mistake. I don't know if I should try to hold on or cut my losses now before it gets worse."
— u/liverly on r/personalfinance
That’s someone staring at a decision that doesn’t have a clean answer. Sell now and you eat closing costs, potential loss on the sale, and the emotional hit of walking away from something you worked hard to get. Hold on and you risk draining every dollar of savings — including retirement money — trying to keep a house that’s actively fighting you.
"I have $32K in my Roth IRA as an emergency backup but I really don't want to go there. That feels like the point of no return."
— u/liverly on r/personalfinance
I get why that feels like the point of no return. But the Roth IRA piece of this story is actually the one piece of genuinely good news — and most people in this situation don’t realize it.
Why Commission Income Needs Different Home-Buying Math
Most mortgage calculators and affordability rules assume your income is stable. The standard advice — keep your housing costs below 28% of gross income, total debt below 36% — works fine if you’re pulling a steady paycheck. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau makes this math look straightforward.
But commission income isn’t a paycheck. It’s a probability distribution. Your $169K year might be followed by a $90K year or a $210K year. You don’t know which one you’re getting, and neither does your budget.
When you’re buying a house on commission income, the math should look different:
Use your worst recent year as your baseline, not your best. If your income over the past three years ranged from $120K to $169K, build your budget around $120K. Lenders will average your commission income over two years for qualification purposes, but qualification and affordability aren’t the same thing. You can qualify for a payment you can’t sustain.
Your emergency fund needs to be larger. The standard three-to-six months of expenses? That’s for W-2 employees with predictable income. Commission earners need six to twelve months, minimum. HUD’s homeownership guidance emphasizes having reserves, but doesn’t distinguish between income types — and it should.
Factor in the house breaking. Because it will. The general rule is 1-2% of the home’s value per year in maintenance. On a $440K house, that’s $4,400 to $8,800 annually. u/liverly blew through two years of that estimate in six months. It happens.
The Roth IRA Question (It’s Not as Bad as You Think)
Here’s where I’ll push back on the Reddit consensus a bit. u/liverly described touching the Roth IRA as “the point of no return.” But the IRS rules on Roth IRA withdrawals actually make it one of the more flexible emergency tools available.
You can withdraw your contributions (not earnings) from a Roth IRA at any time, at any age, with no taxes and no penalties. That’s money you already paid taxes on going in. If u/liverly contributed $32K over the years, some or all of that $32K is available penalty-free.
This doesn’t mean you should raid your retirement accounts at the first sign of trouble. But if the alternative is going into credit card debt at 24% APR or defaulting on a mortgage, pulling Roth contributions is objectively the better move. It’s not the point of no return. It’s a release valve that most people don’t know they have.
The key distinction: contributions come out first, tax- and penalty-free. Earnings are a different story — those trigger taxes and a 10% penalty if you’re under 59 1/2 and don’t qualify for an exception. Know the difference before you touch anything.
When Selling Makes Sense vs. Holding On
The sell-or-hold question doesn’t have a universal answer, but there’s a framework:
Sell if: Your income trajectory has fundamentally changed (not just a temporary dip), you can’t cover mortgage payments from income alone for more than 2-3 months, or the repair costs are accelerating faster than you can absorb them. Also sell if staying means draining retirement accounts past the contribution basis.
Hold if: Your industry downturn looks cyclical rather than structural, you can supplement income (the second job u/liverly mentioned), and your savings can bridge 6-12 months of reduced income without touching retirement money.
One thing to keep in mind: selling a house you bought six months ago is expensive. Between agent commissions (typically 5-6% of sale price), closing costs, and potential market depreciation, you could be looking at $25K-$35K in transaction costs alone. That’s real money that doesn’t come back.
A home warranty might have helped with some of the repair costs — most cover plumbing systems, which was the primary failure point here. It’s worth checking whether the seller offered one at closing or if a policy can still be purchased retroactively.
The Bigger Lesson Here
u/liverly didn’t do anything irrational. They earned good money, bought within standard affordability guidelines, and got hit with bad luck on timing and repairs. The mistake — if you can call it that — was using salaried-income math on commission-income reality.
That’s a distinction the mortgage industry doesn’t make for you. Lenders are in the business of qualifying you for a loan, not ensuring you can weather a downturn. That part is on you.
If you’re earning commission income and thinking about buying, start with your worst-case income, not your best. Build a bigger buffer than feels necessary. And know that the house will cost more than the mortgage payment — always.
