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The loading time of your homepage depends on a several aspects:
1). The amount and size images on your page
2). The quality of your hosting server
3). The quality of your pages coding
4). CSS stylesheet
5). The size of each page itself.

What can slow down the loading time? In fact, many things. Firstly - excess of Java scripts, i.e. miscellaneous effects, especially those that are applied on pictures. It is safe to say that having above 3 Java effects per page will be dramatically reflected on the loading time. Pre-load Java script, however, doesn't slow the loading time, but collides with Flash elements (flash header, buttons, text) and other add-ons, so if you choose using pre-loading script, you have to make sure it will not war with other elements you have on your site.

Another point is tables. the more tables and divisions (<div></div>) you have on your page - the slower it will take to download. Avoid excess of rows, and never leave empty table's cells, if you do not need them. Keep you code as clean as you can. Additionally, work with CSS stylesheet, as a separate .css file, and do not insert <span> and <p style1> into the body of your page. Same applies to custom scrolling bar; make a separate 'scrollbar.js' file, with all the code related to your scrollbar, and insert the following line, just after your meta tags:
<script type="text/javascript" src="scrollbar.js"></script>

When in the begining of this page I said "size of each page", I did not mean the leignt of the text on the page, this is generally, the last thing to cause a problem. The problem will begin if you code is unclean (too many lines, some of which are not of use). The more lines the browser have to "read" the more this process will take. Logical, isn`t it? You can avoid unneeded pieces in your code source by NOT using any Visual Editor, which is almost always generates a lot of useless code. Some pieces of this code cannot be removed, and you end up with a lot of lines in your code which do nothing but malfunctioning your loading time.

The amount of images on your website will as well effect the time it will take to download. While small images and icons do no damage, files that exceed 50kb begin to effect the speed. Even if you have a super fast hosting service, but the background of your page is 250kb - you will never get to see your page loading quickly. Try to reduce the use of large images to the utmost minimum, and I would also add - the use of images in general. If your template is one big 500kb image, you might want to consider"slicing" it to a several pieces, but then do not slice it to too many small images, as this will lead to excess of tables and rows, and again - slow data transfer. Optimizing your website is not as hard as it seems, as long as you bear in mind that everything should come in proportion.

The last thing, over which you have less control is - hosting service. If you aspire for amazingly fast loading site, you must not forget that no free server will load reasonably fast. Moreover, not every paid server will, even if it is an expensive one and guarantees that your site will be hosted on high quality servers. Price can mislead, as 'too cheap' hosting unlikely to have good machines, but at the same time, high price is no assurance for a superior server either. Best way is to choose a hosting is to ask any of your friends for a host they use and satisfied with. If none of your friends has a website, you can be referred by other sites, which you see load rapidly, and simply ask what hosting service do they use.

Summary: Optimizing your website for a fast loading is not an easy task after all, though neither is "mission impossible". Keep your code simple, avoid overuse of fancy scripts, Java effects, online site builders, tables and big images. Create a clean CSS stylesheet, valid HTML code and choose a good hosting service - this will assure your site is not going to crash anyone's browser and won't let impatient visitors to close the window before your site has got the chance to load.