Research from a leading website suggests borrowers are choosing long-term stability after remarkable volatility in the price of short-term mortgages. The proportion of fixed rate mortgage deals with a term of at least ten years almost doubled from 8% in July 2007 to 15% this month. Part of this is a result of the rapid shrinkage in the UK mortgage market as banks become more reluctant to lend, and the actual number of deals has only grown 8% to 137.