(In the US), the thing with fixed rate mortgages is that they're predictable which has a lot of value too even if you could do better with ARM if things align. And if rates go down--not that that was likely over the past at least 10 or so years, you could always refinance to a lower rate. I did have a home equity line of credit for a while--which was variable--but fortunately during a pretty low interest rate period.
