Variable rate mortgages don’t have to have an ARM, unless something has changed that I don’t know about, which is very possible, because I haven’t looked at variable rate mortgages in 15 years.
My in-laws had a variable rate the life in my of their loan, and were hugely lucky that rates went down and down when they did it 30 years ago, but they also could have paid off the loan in full at the time they bought the house, so they didn’t have to live with the mortgage if the rate skyrocketed. 10 years later they couldn’t have paid it off, because their financial situation changed, but that’s a separate story, but if the rates had doubled they would have been in s tough spot, maybe forced to sell
I had a variable ARM attached to the MTA during the real estate boom in the early 2000’s when anyone could get a mortgage. The interest rate was in my opinion a scam. I did it only because I planned on selling the house in a year, and I could pay off the mortgage if I had to. Possibly, they don’t do these type of offerings anymore since the government cracked down in mortgages. I think the rate went from 2% to 5% a couple of years later, I don’t remember. It had some sort of thing where you pay only interest at first, nothing into the principal, or almost nothing (all mortgages you pay mostly interest at first, but this was more extreme). Attractive to investors who got tax breaks and didn’t plan on holding the property long, which is what I was doing at the time.
If you do a variable see if there is a cap on how high the rate can go. But, I still say don’t do it, get the fixed. The rate is so low now, get the fixed.