Nearly 20% of today’s home buyers are purchasing for more than one generation. Here’s what’s really behind the trend.
Nationally, close to one in five home buyers today are purchasing a home to support a multi-generational household. In California, where the cost of living has a way of accelerating every trend a little sooner, I’m seeing it constantly.
But after sitting with several of these families this year, I’ve realized the real story isn’t about buying. It’s about living.
One of my clients, a mother in her seventies, put it more simply than any statistic ever could:
“It’s so wonderful to cook with my son, and to come home to people who are awake and say hello to me.”
That sentence isn’t about square footage. It isn’t about interest rates. It’s about belonging.
It made me realize something. We tend to think the American Dream follows a straight line: graduate, buy a house, raise a family, retire. But a different dream is emerging alongside it, and it starts with a different question. Not “What can I afford?” but “Who do I want to come home to?”
If you’re just beginning your homeownership journey, our First Time Home Buyer Guide From Start to Keys explains everything from pre-approval through closing. You can also explore our Homebuyer Resources for buyer guides, checklists, and planning tools to help your family prepare for homeownership.
The Return of the Family Home
Multi-generational living isn’t new. It’s actually one of the oldest housing patterns there is. What’s new is why families are returning to it.
People are living longer. Aging parents need care. Childcare is expensive. Housing is expensive. And a lot of people, regardless of age, are craving real connection. Families are finding new ways to support one another, and the home has become the place where all of that comes together.
As a mortgage advisor, I’ve found that the financing is often the easiest part. The bigger conversation is helping families find the ownership structure and mortgage strategy that supports the life they’re trying to build together.
I also don’t think this is uniquely Californian. I think California is simply experiencing it first, because our housing costs force the question sooner. The emotional reasons underneath it, loneliness, grief, caregiving, the joy of grandchildren, the need for security, are universal. Affordability is accelerating the trend. It didn’t create it.
What’s Really Driving This Trend
Aging Parents
Parents are living longer, and many don’t want to spend those years alone. For a parent with the financial means to help, buying a home together isn’t a compromise. It’s often the outcome they wanted all along: to age near the people they love most, not in isolation from them.
Adult Children
For adult children, the calculation has changed too. Rising home prices, childcare costs, and the desire for stability have made combining resources with a parent a genuinely smart move, not a step backward. For many, it’s the fastest and most sustainable path to homeownership they have. Many families also combine these strategies with available down payment assistance programs.
Grandchildren
Almost every family I’ve worked with on one of these purchases mentions this without me asking: grandparents want to be present. Not visiting on holidays. Present. Making breakfast. Picking kids up from school. Being there for the small, ordinary moments that don’t happen over a phone call.
Affordability
I’ll be honest about this one, because a client asked me directly: would this still be happening if homes were affordable for everyone? My answer is that some of it would, but not nearly as much. Affordability has absolutely accelerated the trend. It’s made families ask, “Instead of each of us solving this separately, what if we solved it together?” But the emotional drivers, aging, loneliness, caregiving, connection, would still be there even in a market with lower prices. Affordability didn’t invent this. It just made more families act on it sooner.
Caregiving
This is often the quiet reason underneath the stated one. A parent needs help getting around. A spouse is managing a serious illness. A grandparent can watch the kids while a young couple works. Multi-generational living turns caregiving from a logistical crisis into something a family can actually sustain, because everyone is under one roof and everyone can contribute.
Family Wealth
I’ve also seen adult children use an inheritance not to buy something separate, but to strengthen the family’s overall position, combining resources to help a parent qualify, or investing in a property that benefits everyone. It’s a different way of thinking about wealth: not what’s mine, but what strengthens us. Gift funds and inheritance can both become valuable tools when structured correctly during a home purchase.
Family gifts are a common way to help with a home purchase, but they should be structured properly. The IRS provides guidance on when a transfer is considered a gift and how the federal gift tax rules work.
Loneliness
Of everything on this list, this is the one that surprised me most, not because it’s rare, but because clients rarely name it first. It usually comes out after we’ve talked through financing, timelines, and logistics. Someone will pause and say some version of: I just didn’t want to come home to an empty house anymore. That’s not a financial motivation. It’s a human one. And it’s often the real reason behind the purchase.
Thinking About This for Your Own Family?
If any of this sounds like your situation, aging parents, adult kids figuring out their next step, an inheritance you want to put to good use, I offer a free 30-minute consultation to talk through what’s possible. No pressure, no obligation. Just a conversation about your family’s goals and the financing options that could support them.
Real Families, Real Stories
These stories are shared with each family’s comfort and privacy in mind. Details have been adjusted or simplified where needed. But I wanted to include how each family actually structured their purchase, because that’s often the part people assume is complicated, and it usually isn’t.
A Home Filled With People Again
One of my longtime clients, a mother in her sixties, had gone through a period of profound loss and hardship in the home she’d lived in for years in Antelope. She reached a point where she no longer wanted to come home to a quiet, empty house filled with hard memories. She was especially close with her adult son, whose own household was navigating serious challenges of its own.
Rather than each of them trying to manage separately, the family sold the Antelope home and purchased a four-bedroom, three-bath house on a half-acre lot in Carmichael. The home’s layout mattered here: a back primary bedroom, set apart from the rest of the house, gave her and her husband their own quiet space while still being part of the household. They put 10% down on a conventional loan and carried monthly PMI (mortgage insurance that applies when the down payment is under 20%), which kept the purchase affordable without draining their savings. Mom, her husband, and her son all went on the loan together. Her son’s wife, who wasn’t working at the time and had credit challenges, wasn’t included on the loan or the title, which simply meant qualifying with three incomes and three credit profiles instead of four.
Today, she shares dinner with her son most nights, spends time with her grandson, and says that hearing someone say “Hi Mom” when she walks through the door has brought a new sense of happiness back into her life.
Two Mothers, Similar Decisions
This year, two different clients arrived at almost the same decision independently. Both were women in their seventies, both financially secure, both facing the same quiet reality: they didn’t want to spend their remaining years living alone.
One of them bought a 2,300-square-foot home in Orangevale entirely on her own, using her own savings for the down payment and taking the loan in her name only, so she could move in with her adult children and grandchildren without complicating anyone else’s credit or finances. The other client structured her purchase similarly, contributing her own resources to help create a home where three generations could live together. Neither woman described it as sacrifice. Both described it as relief, and both became first-time home buyers well into their seventies.
Every homebuyer’s situation is different, which is why understanding today’s loan options is so important.
Caring for Mom, Together
One family came to me because Dad, now in his later years, was caring for Mom, who uses a wheelchair, largely on his own. Their adult children decided to move in and share the load. Rather than sell the family home outright, they turned it into a rental property and, together with Mom and Dad, purchased a ranch-style home on acreage where everyone could live under one roof. Aging parents contributed more toward the purchase given their financial position, and the family worked with their estate attorney to update their trust to reflect the new arrangement. What started as a caregiving problem became a long-term family plan.
An Inheritance, Reinvested in Family
A young woman in her mid-twenties came to me as a first-time buyer. She’d recently received an inheritance and, rather than using it to strike out on her own, she chose to invest it in her mother’s home in Lucerne, a property her mother had received in a divorce. Her mother’s health made it difficult to manage the home, and to qualify for financing, on her own.
Instead of buying something separate, we did a refinance on the Lucerne home and added the daughter to title as a tenant in common, with a 13% ownership stake reflecting her contribution. Tenants in common simply means each owner holds a specific, distinct share of the property, which can later be sold, willed, or adjusted independently of the other owner’s share. We financed the refinance as a conventional loan. What could have been treated as “my money for my future” became an investment in her family’s stability instead.
A Mother’s Gift, A Family’s Down Payment
Not every parent in these stories goes on the loan, and this family is a good example of why. A mother wanted to help her adult kids and grandkids buy a home in Placerville, but rather than purchasing it with them, she gifted the full 20% down payment. She sourced those funds through a cash-out refinance on a rental property she owns in Solvang, freeing up equity without selling the property outright.
Her kids qualified for the loan entirely on their own, using an FHA loan with the gifted 20% down. (Gift funds have to be documented properly, with a gift letter and paper trail, but they’re a completely legitimate and common way for family to help.) The home they purchased even came with an ADU on the opposite side of the yard, room for Mom to have her own space nearby down the road, without anyone needing to qualify for a larger loan today than they needed.
Some buyers intentionally search for properties with ADUs, while others choose to build one later through renovation financing.
Independence and Togetherness, Same Property
Not every family wants to share a kitchen, and that’s where thoughtful property design comes in. One family purchased a $1.8 million home in Orangevale with a beautiful, fully separate ADU on the property. In this case, the adult children were the ones who qualified and went on the loan. The parents didn’t go on the mortgage and didn’t contribute to the down payment; the kids financed the purchase themselves, putting $1.3 million down and financing $500,000 on a conventional loan, with the parents living in the ADU.
Everyone has their own space and their own front door, and everyone is still close enough for Sunday dinner. It’s proof that multi-generational living doesn’t require one household, or one name on the loan. It just requires one property, and the right structure to make it work for whoever is actually qualifying.
Not Old-Fashioned. Just Adapting.
Every one of these families reached a genuinely hopeful outcome. Not because everything about their situation was easy, but because they made an intentional decision to face a hard season together instead of separately.
I don’t think that’s old-fashioned, and I don’t think it’s a step backward. Families are adapting to a housing market that’s harder than it used to be, to longer lifespans, to the rising cost of childcare, and to a basic human need for connection that doesn’t go away no matter how the market moves. In some ways, it’s actually a very old value returning: the idea that being together has worth of its own.
For some families, independence means separate homes next door to each other. For others, it means designing one property, sometimes with an ADU, sometimes with a shared floor plan, that gives everyone both privacy and closeness. Neither approach is better. They’re simply different ways families are responding to their own circumstances and their own priorities.
Financing Multi-Generational Homeownership
One of the questions I hear most often is, “How do families actually finance these types of purchases?”
The answer depends on each family’s goals, income, and ownership structure, but there are many options available. Over the years, I’ve helped families use:
● Conventional loans with multiple borrowers
● FHA loans for families looking for flexible qualifying guidelines
● FHA 203(k) Loans for Homes with ADUs
● Jumbo loans for larger multi-generational homes
● Properties with ADUs that provide both privacy and proximity
● Gift funds from parents or grandparents to help with the down payment
● Shared ownership strategies when multiple generations purchase together
● Inheritance proceeds invested into a family home
● Bridge financing for families buying before selling
● Home equity from an existing property to help fund the next purchase
Every family’s situation is unique, which is why we begin with a conversation about your goals before recommending the financing strategy that fits your needs.
If You’re Considering This for Your Family
If any part of these stories sounds familiar, whether it’s an aging parent, a caregiving situation, an inheritance you want to put toward something meaningful, or simply a desire to stop coming home to an empty house, I’d love to talk it through with you. Every one of these families started with a conversation, not a spreadsheet.
A note on the financial and legal details mentioned above: every family’s situation with trusts, inheritance, and shared ownership is different, and this article isn’t legal or tax advice. I always recommend working with an estate attorney or tax professional alongside your lender to make sure the ownership structure fits your family’s specific goals.
❓FAQs about Why More California Families Are Choosing Multi-Generational Family Living
No. As several of the stories above show, it’s common for only some family members to go on the loan, whether that’s just the adult children, just a parent, or some combination based on who has the income and credit to qualify. The people living in the home and the people on the loan don’t have to be the same list.
Yes. Gift funds from family are a common and completely legitimate way to help with a down payment. Lenders do require documentation, typically a signed gift letter and a paper trail showing where the money came from, but the process is straightforward.
Joint tenancy generally means all owners hold equal shares and the property passes automatically to the surviving owners. Tenants in common allows each owner to hold a specific, potentially unequal share, like the 13% ownership stake in one of the stories above, and that share can be sold, willed, or transferred independently. Which structure makes sense depends on your family’s goals, and it’s worth discussing with an estate attorney alongside your lender.
Yes, and it’s one of the most popular structures I see. A property with an ADU gives everyone their own space and their own front door, while keeping family close enough for daily life together. Financing can work multiple ways, sometimes everyone qualifies together, and sometimes just one generation is on the loan while the other lives in the ADU.
There’s no single answer. Conventional loans with multiple borrowers, FHA loans, VA loans for eligible veterans, and jumbo loans for larger properties have all worked well for different families, depending on income, credit, and the size of the home. The right fit depends on your specific situation.
Inheritance proceeds can be invested directly into a family home rather than used for a separate purchase, sometimes through a refinance that adds the contributing family member to title. It’s a way of turning a personal inheritance into a shared family asset.
Not necessarily. Some families sell an existing home and roll the proceeds into the new purchase, some convert an existing home into a rental instead of selling it, and others use bridge financing or existing home equity to purchase before selling. Which option fits depends on your finances and timeline.
Not at all. Some of the families above had substantial resources to work with, and others qualified with modest, standard down payments and FHA financing. Multi-generational buying is less about how much money a family has, and more about how they choose to combine what they have toward a shared goal.
