Is there a way to determine what kind of homepage to apply based on the current page situation?

@dublove 

Like @James Gifford—NitroPress said - only through scripting - which is piece of cake.

And in this case - you should use "master page / spread" instead of "homepage".

Not really, although I suppose scripting could be used for limited, doc-specific solutions.

One of InDesign's fundamental limitations is that there is no way for content to drive Parent page assignment, even at a simple Chapter Head == use Chapter Start Page level.