When you purchase a home, it's a good idea to do what you can to speed up the process of paying off your mortgage. Paying down your mortgage can take a lot of stress off you as a homeowner and improve your credit score. 

If you're looking for ways to pay off your mortgage as quickly as possible after you've bought a home, try to get into the following six habits:

Put extra money toward your mortgage

If you're paying down a mortgage, it's a good idea to put extra money from tax returns or job bonuses, for example, toward your payments. Rather than splurging with extra money that comes in, you can use it practically to put yourself in a better financial position by lowering your mortgage debt. 

Stay on top of your credit

If you've been approved for a mortgage loan, your credit is probably in pretty decent shape. However, there's always room for improvement.

By staying on top of your credit and improving it after you buy a home, you could make it possible to enjoy better mortgage loan terms in the near future by refinancing.

When you refinance you can lower the amount of interest you'll need to pay over the life of your loan and thereby make your home more affordable. 

Make bi-weekly payments

When you make bi-weekly payments, you make an extra full mortgage payment each year. With bi-weekly payments, you make 26 half payments and therefore 13 full payments in a year. With monthly payments, you only make 12 payments in a year. 

Arranging for bi-weekly payments will put you ahead a bit every year. Your mortgage will be paid off one month early for every year of your original mortgage loan term. 

Buy a more affordable home to begin with

The lower your mortgage loan amount is, the faster you'll be able to pay it off. Put a lot of thought into the initial home purchase and avoid choosing a property that will require you to borrow an exorbitant amount of money. 

Make payments on the principal

Depending on your lender, you may be able to designate one payment or several payments every year to go entirely toward the principal amount. This will help in the long run because it will minimize the amount of interest that accrues on your mortgage loan over time.

Rent a room out

If you don't mind playing the role of a landlord, you can rent a room out each month to help you enjoy some rental income to put toward your mortgage.

Renting rooms can be a great way to achieve homeownership without having to take full mortgage payments out of your regular income. For more information, contact companies like Acceptance  Capital Mortgage.