Tips to help you get home loan free faster

Taking out a home loan is often a long-term commitment, and can be with you for years. After all, purchasing property is one of the biggest investments most people will make in their lives – more so than buying a car or new television.

And sometimes, when looking at your remaining balance, you may feel overwhelmingly hopeless. But don't let it get you down; there are a number of things you can do to help tackle your mortgage mountain and become debt-free faster.

Retain repayment amounts

Following the cash rate reduction to the historically low 2.5 per cent back in August, many lenders passed these savings on in full to their customers. If you can afford to keep it up, continue making your original repayment amount.

This extra $50 – $100 per repayment may not seem like much, but over the lifetime of your loan, you can take out a decent sized chunk of debt without making any major changes.

Make extra repayments

If you happen to come into a large sum of money – perhaps an end-of-year work bonus – your natural inclination could be to splurge. Perhaps taking a holiday, or refurbishing your home?

The best course of action, however, could be to make a large lump sum payment into your home loan debts. Reducing your mortgage as fast as possible will help you to come out better off financially in the future, by removing your main source of expense.

Make fortnightly rather than monthly repayments

Increasing the number of repayments you make can help you to rapidly reduce your home loan balance. Furthermore, this will also help to reduce the amount of time spent making home loan repayments, which is great news for you in the long run.