Everyone’s so anxious to call the “bottom” of the real estate housing crisis.

Why? There’s no accolade for being right. It’s not as if we’re going to see a 65 percent surge in housing prices over the next six months (and watch out for that kind of momentum in the stock market - it just feels wrong when the real unemployment rate is approaching 16 percent nationally).

All there is at the bottom of the real estate housing market is pain for millions of homeowners who have lost their homes to foreclosure, even as they’ve lost their jobs and whatever few thousand bucks they had left in their 401(k)s. And for those who are still in their homes, their net worth has fallen as their home prices have dropped 30 to 40 percent.

The truth is that the U.S. housing market is still on life support - with the federal government supplying the Dopamine. Whether you’re looking at the $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit, or the fact that the federal government is backing 85 percent (or more) of first mortgages through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, VA, or USDA, or that Uncle Sam is spending more than a $1 trillion to buy U.S. housing-backed securities to keep mortgage rates artificially low, or that the number of low-down payment FHA loans going bad is surging.

If you’re going to be a real estate investor, it comes down to price and income. Can the income the property will generate support the price you’re going to pay? If not, how do you plan to keep from going broke?

To read Ilyce's complete article, logon to CBS Money Watch.