For today only take 10% off of our Solana glass subway tiles for any paid order of 20 square feet or more. Call in your order to our toll free number and we will take the discount off of the normal price at the time of order. And remember that to qualify for free shipping any order total must be $299 or more of tile ordered.

This discount offer is only being promoted for today on our blog so if you are kind enough to visit our blog as one of our readers this is our way of saying thank you to you. Our Solana glass subway tiles would look great on your kitchen backsplash ahead of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. Or, upgrade that hallway bathroom that everyone will use so the compliments come en masse this holiday season when the guests arrive.

Thanks again for stopping by the blog and we look forward to speaking with you on Friday.

Anyone have a look at where mortgage rates are these days? Well if you are in the market to buy a house it is a very good time because prices continue to remain low and mortgage rates are defying gravity and any reasonable explanation for their low levels.

For a 30 year fixed of course depending on your lender and credit score, a rate on a 30 year fixed of 4% is entirely possible for many folks out there. And if you want to pay a point on the loan amount a rate of 3.8% is also within reach. The savings on a monthly mortgage payment on a 4% mortgage vs a 5.5% to 6% mortgage where rates were only a few year ago are tremendous. The savings in interest over the life of the loan would make a serious dent in your kids college education costs.

We have said this before in our blog, if you are in the market at all for a home, this is clearly a good time to buy for anyone with decent to good credit. Time to “jump in” if this includes you.

Wow, can’t believe those rates!!!

The Tata Group of India has introduced a pre-fabricated home concept that will sell for approximately $700 per home when all is said and done. The home has a separate living area, fully equipped kitchen, bedroom and bath areas that all together make this unit a nice dwelling for the money.

Dubbed the Nano house, the Economic Times of India reports that the flatpack dwelling comes with pre-fabricated materials, including doors and windows, for a house of around 215 square feet in size. Materials consist of coconut or jute cladding complete with interior layouts. The proposed price of the ready-to-assemble kit is said to be just $US700. The homes take about one week to assemble and complete in most cases before they can be used.

Tata sells the homes primarily in India at the moment but they are aggressively seeking international distribution for their small home in countries across the globe. These homes we acknowledge are small but in our view are very livable considering the price tag.

Visit the Tata Group site to learn more about pricing, specs, and delivery.

Check out this amazing piece of art done by Artist Scott Gunderson. This portrait is named “Grace” by the artist and measures 66″ x 96″ and is made up of………..guess……..how many wine corks?? The portrait is made up of 9,217 wine corks that apparently are all donated to the artist by folks who support his work.

If you would like to support Scott Gunderson’s cork art you can contact him via his website here. Beautiful work Scott!

Our Arizona Diamondbacks were shown no baseball love this year by the sports world and I have to say we were skeptical too of their chances of winning in the NL West division. But alas they proved the doubters wrong and they persevered through a long season to win their division and become NL West Division champs.

We thought we would celebrate with our own “deal of the day” one day deal for our customers who read our blog. Since our Arizona Diamondbacks are 2011 NL West division champs we are going to offer our Classic Hexagon 1″ x 1″ tiles for $11.00 per square foot for one day only – today Monday.

To enjoy this special price you must call in your order to us via the toll free number listed on our home page and ask for the Diamondbacks deal of the day. Order must be for fifteen sheets or more and the order must be paid and completed on Monday 9/26.

We look forward to speaking with our customers who are baseball fans……….and even those who are not fans. Give us a call anyway as we always love to chat.

Have a good week everybody!

Despite the sluggish housing market, home prices in many housing markets located in metro areas in and around the middle of the US are showing pockets of health.

The Los Angeles Times recently reported that markets such as Columbus, Ohio, Detroit, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Mo., and Milwaukee, WI all showed gains in housing prices in the second quarter according to the latest government figures. What does this all mean given that the US still finds itself mired in a long and deep slump in the housing market?

Most likely the numbers show that people in those places and several others bought more than the usual number of expensive properties in the April – June time period. But that magnifies the point according to the times article because surprisingly, folks in those areas are still willing to spend the money to buy what are considered expensive properties for their areas relative to the median price in their housing market.

Families who have the money to spend are probably taking advantage of very attractive mortgage rates that have no where to go but up from their current levels. For example, if prices remain the same and rates climb from 4.5% to 5.5% the same $200,000 house will cost 12% more each month to own. If rates should rise 2 percentage points to 6.5%, the mortgage payment on that same house would rise 25%. So folks with money to spend are being smart with their money and picking up good properties at attractive prices with mortgage rates that won’t be this low forever.

If you have the money to spend and are in the market for a home this is a pretty good time to buy.

We need to make warehouse room in a hurry so we are offering a one day sale on our Solana Glass mosaic 1” x 1” tiles in any color blend. For Friday only take $2.00 per sf off of the regular price of $9.99 per sf and pay only $7.99 per sf for any order of 10 sheets or more. Call in your order to us at 888 260-7371 and we will process your order by phone and ship the same day for any order placed before 1 p.m. PST.

Enjoy your weekend everybody and we look forward to your call!

For those of you who read our Blog regularly we certainly do appreciate your keeping up with the comings and goings of AnchorBayTile. And for those of you in the planning stages of a home remodeling project be sure to check back with our Blog regularly to see what specials and discounts we might be offering on any one of our tiles.

This week we are offering a 10% discount on our Kaguya Bamboo tiles in both the subway 2″ x 4″ tiles and the Waterfall design mosaic tiles. The 10% discount runs for 3 days until July 27th at our close of business. A five sheet minimum purchase is required and there are no returns or refunds on our sale items.

Take advantage of this sale to upgrade your home this summer with the beautiful look of modern and contemporary Bamboo tiles. Phone in your order to us at 1 888 260-7371 when you are ready to complete your purchase.

With affordable housing on the minds of many companies and organizations in both the public and the private sector these days given the dire state of the nation’s housing market, some students from the architecture program at Auburn University just might have come up with one of the most promising solutions for affordable housing proposed to date.

Rural Studio is a program of the School of Architecture at Auburn University in west Alabama. For the past six years, their students have been designing and building low-income housing, for a home that costs only $20K total. Costs are broken down with $10K allocated to materials and $10K allocated to labor. There is a Rural Development loan available through the federal government where very low income people in rural areas are able to borrow a maximum of $20,000 for home repair or construction.

The Rural Studio embarks on many projects each year, but the 20K House project was started in order to create a precedent that homes could be built on this extremely low budget that would outlast and outperform substandard housing or trailers that many in this very low income bracket are living in.
Given the $20K cost of this home, under the Federal Section 502 Direct Loan program the resident’s monthly payment would be about $100 which clearly is very affordable for almost any potential homeowner.

For more information visit the schools website and you can view more photos of the completed homes here.

The producers of the TV show House Crashers which airs on the diy network have selected our Cork Mosaic Tiles as the flooring choice for an episode they titled “Bar Basement Lounge”. The show is scheduled to air this evening July 18th on the diy network at 6 p.m. EST so please tune in and let us know what you think.

Our cork mosaic tiles were chosen over many other materials for the homeowners basement area and we were both proud and pleased when we were notified that our tiles had been selected.

We would love for our customers and our friends to leave a comment below on our Blog to let us know what you think of the homeowners new look basement when you watch the show. Thank you as always for your continued support!