There’s a lot of doom and gloom in stories about Las Vegas housing, particularly by the national media.

It’s true, the market has slowed down. In fact, new home permits are down 48.7 percent since last March.

However, one thing appears to remain relatively stable, and that’s price.

Although it’s a buyer’s market—meaning there are more homes for sale than buyers to purchase them—Home Builders Research reported March 18 that the median price of new home transactions was $315,965. That’s up 2.3 percent year-to-year.

When you take into consideration apartment conversions, high- and mid-rises and condotels, the median price of the traditional single family detached and condominium/townhomes becomes $330,070. This represents an annual decrease of 4.4 percent.

Naturally, the type of home makes an impact on the median price.

The report cautioned readers to take into consideration that resales of high- and mid-rise condominiums are pushing up the resale median and average prices in the Valley. In February the average resale price was $369,005, an annual increase of 10.2 percent.

The single largest contributing factor to the state of Southern Nevada’s housing market seems to be job growth. Las Vegas added about 50,000 jobs last year. Compare that to the nearly 67,000 jobs lost last year in Michigan alone.

The local housing market may be gloomy to some, but the outlook remains sunny for Las Vegas.