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Most home buyers have to borrow money in order to purchase their home.
Few have enough money sitting in the bank, or in other easily saleable assets, to pay the entire cost of the home at once. A fixed rate mortgage carries an interest rate that will be set at or before the time of the loan, and remain constant for the length of the mortgage. If you have a 30-year mortgage, the rate you pay will be fixed for all 30 years. At the end of the 30th year, if payments have been made on time, the loan is fully paid off. The tradeoff is that the lender is taking the risk that interest rates will rise and it will get stuck carrying a loan at below market interest rates for much of the 30 years.