Hello, I apologize in advance for my lengthy post as well as my total naivety on these topics. I'm currently in a situation where I am wanting to buy a second home for my parents to live in and I'm not exactly sure what the best/smartest move is on my end to go about it...

My current situation is this: I am married and my husband and I file our taxes separately. We've always been super independent and have kept most of our finances separate. While I know we are probably missing out on some good $ by filing joint, he owns his own business and the headache and stress that it creates to come together and get through it each year is worth the loss to me lol. We bought our house four years ago and getting all the necessary extra documents on his end was a chore and I'm looking to avoid doing that again if possible. (He's not super organized and that's a complaint for another post..) My parents have very little income (my mother is on disability and my father works part time and is close to retiring) and they have been been jumping from rentals to currently living in my sister's home and my other siblings and I have been putting a lot of money over the years into helping out and keeping them afloat. We are always on edge and instead of never knowing what expense is around the corner or when the close quarters of my sister's home will break all of their spirits, I really would like to set them up in a house that I know has a fixed (for the most part) cost and know they are settled. I've reached out to a loan officer and it looks as though I should beto be able to carry a loan on my own without the hassle of dragging my husband through the process again. He's supportive of the idea (mostly I think to keep them from showing up on our doorstep) but I think relieved that he won't have to scramble to go through the process again. So here's the first question: I'm being told that I will have to get an investment home type loan. If I buy a second home and pay the mortgage payments do I consider this an Investment home?? I'm sort of confused on my options. If I'm not making any money off of it does that hurt me? Is there a smarter way of going about it? I am reading that if it's an investment property and I don't make $ it will not be good on my taxes, as well as possibly make my current home property tax go up? I prefer, if possible, to not alter my current house costs. Can I not just buy a second home for myself and let my parents live in it? I am fully expecting to have several weekends a year that I stay over there so I am not sure what the requirements are for an owner to have to actually "live" there. Would this be better tax-wise? Also possibly worth noting is we all live in the Kansas City metro, but I live on the KS side and the house I will purchase for my parents will be on the MO side.
Any and all suggestions, tips, help, advice would be SUPER helpful!!!!!