Median rental price for a one-bedroom D.C. apartment is $2,000, study says

The Harper, a high-end apartment building on 14th Street, is in the heart of one of D.C.’s hottest neighborhoods. (Andre Chung for The Washington Post)

This morning, my colleague Aaron C. Davis wrote about a distressing study from the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute highlighting just how out of reach housing costs have become for the city’s low-income earners.

The number of apartments renting for less than $800, according to the study, fell about 42 percent, from more than 57,700 in 2002 to 33,400 in 2013. DCFPI concluded that there are almost no more apartments in D.C.’s open market that rent for less than $800 a month. 

So if you’re still not convinced that D.C. housing costs are objectively exorbitant, here’s one more report to send the message home: Zumper, a national rental search site, says that D.C. is the fourth most expensive rental market among the 50 largest cities in the country, behind — surprise, surprise — New York, San Francisco and Boston.

The report looked at median rental prices for one-bedroom apartments in the area in February. In Washington, that median is price is $2,000 — down 0.5 percent from last month and down 2.5 percent from last quarter.

[Read: Why it’s so hard to find a cheap apartment in Washington]

Interestingly, the study also breaks down rental prices by all cities — not just the largest ones — and found that for the Washington metro area, Tysons Corner had the highest median price for a one-bedroom at $2,020. The District was right behind at $2,000. (Remember, this is median price, not average price, so if Tysons has less variability in its rental prices than D.C., the median price would skew higher if it has fewer relatively cheaper units.) The most expensive cities in the country, according to Zumper, are New York, San Francisco and Palo Alto, Calif., respectively.

Arlington, Bethesda, Alexandria, Chevy Chase, Glenmont, Silver Spring, North Bethesda, Rockville, Herndon and Gaithersburg all ranked in the Top 100 rental cities nationwide.

When median one-bedroom rental prices are broken down by neighborhood, no neighborhood in D.C. cracked the Top 50. That honor was held mostly by neighborhoods in New York and San Francisco, with Tribeca being the most expensive at $4,300.

Georgetown ranks as the most expensive — at No. 76 nationwide — in the Washington region, with a median price of $2,600. Penn Quarter and Foggy Bottom are close behind, with median one-bedroom prices of $2,510 and $2,500, respectively.

Read the full study here.