Photo by maxedaperture

According to a new Center for Housing Policy study, D.C. was the sixth most expensive rental market in the country last year, ranking just behind New York’s Suffolk County. The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in 2009 was a reported $1,494.

You can download the full report and rankings [PDF] here. NB: they have Bethesda and D.C. broken out as individual cities, tied for sixth, with the same “fair market rent.”

Wheeling, W.Va., was the cheapest rental market in the study, at an average of $558 per month. Nearby Baltimore, Md., came in at No. 27, with an average rental of $1,203 per month for a similar apartment.

In the same report, D.C. was ranked as the 25th most unaffordable market for buying a home, with a median home price of $285,000 for a comparable two-bedroom home, while Bethesda ranked 19th and had a median price of $311,000.

You could make the case that this means that it is time to buy in D.C., as it is currently a more affordable market from an owning perspective than from a renting perspective. But that obviously assumes that you can get a mortgage and a home for $285,000 that suits where you want to live, etc. Not exactly an easy feat.