Cinco de Mayo is a celebration of heritage, resilience, and community. It is also a reasonable moment to look at how multigenerational households buy property, because the standard advice is often written for a single household of two earners and does not fit.
Families buy together for practical reasons. A home is chosen so that aging parents can live with their adult children. Equity is tapped to fund tuition. A refinance is structured around self-employment income that a tax return understates. Each of those has a loan structure that suits it better than the default.
Three worth understanding: the FHA loan, for buyers who need flexibility on credit history and down payment. The DSCR loan, where an investment property is qualified on the rent it produces rather than on personal income. And the bank statement loan, where a self-employed borrower documents income from deposits rather than tax returns.
The FHA option comes with a cost that is often glossed over. There is an upfront mortgage insurance premium of 1.75% of the loan amount, which can be financed into the balance, plus an annual premium paid monthly. If you put less than 10% down on a 30-year term, that annual premium stays for the life of the loan and does not drop off when you reach 20% equity. At 90% loan-to-value or less it runs for 11 years. Getting out of it usually means refinancing into a conventional loan later.
HUD publishes the current FHA premium tables and the cancellation rules at hud.gov. Read them alongside your own numbers before deciding FHA is the cheaper route.