John Charcol has reported a sharp rise in the take-up of fixed rates in January and February of 2011.

The John Charcol Mortgage Index is published monthly, tracking three key statistics, based on mortgage business written by John Charcol.

Ray Boulger , senior technical manager at John Charcol, said: “With this month’s John Charcol Index we have included figures for the 2009 and 2010 calendar years. These show that in 2010 purchase business increased to 54.2% from 2009’s 48.0%