Fort Collins-Loveland vs Prescott Valley-Prescott

Cost of living comparison based on BEA Regional Price Parities. Prescott Valley-Prescott is 2.8% less expensive than Fort Collins-Loveland.

2.8% less expensive

Prescott Valley-Prescott, AZ is 2.8% less expensive than Fort Collins-Loveland, CO on BEA Regional Price Parities (overall RPP 98.3 vs 101.1). A $100,000 salary in Fort Collins-Loveland buys about the same as $97,159 in Prescott Valley-Prescott; the largest component gap is rents.

  • Overall RPP 101.1 (Fort Collins-Loveland) vs 98.3 (Prescott Valley-Prescott)
  • $100k in Fort Collins-Loveland ≈ $97,159 purchasing power in Prescott Valley-Prescott
  • Rents drives the gap (-21.8 RPP points)

RPP parity plate

Pair CO:AZ 101.1→98.3

TIER-NEAR · CROSS-STATE · SPLIT-BUDGET · BENCH-CROSS · PP-SHIFT

  • TIER-NEAR Near tier
  • CROSS-STATE CO × AZ
  • SPLIT-BUDGET Split budget
  • BENCH-CROSS Benchmark cross
  • PP-SHIFT PP shift

Instrument codes from this pair's BEA Regional Price Parities (overall · goods · services · rents · national benchmark 100 · purchasing-power conversion), not a ranking or recommendation.

Category Breakdown

Visual Comparison

Overall
Fort Collins-Loveland
101.1
Prescott Valley-Prescott
98.3
Goods
Fort Collins-Loveland
96.1
Prescott Valley-Prescott
96.2
Services
Fort Collins-Loveland
82.2
Prescott Valley-Prescott
91.5
Rents
Fort Collins-Loveland
120.6
Prescott Valley-Prescott
98.8

Vertical line = national average (100)

What This Comparison Actually Tells You

Rents creates the largest separation: Prescott Valley-Prescott is 21.8 points lower. But services and goods move against the overall direction, so this is a split budget rather than a clean across-the-board winner.

Prescott Valley-Prescott, AZ is 2.8% less expensive than Fort Collins-Loveland, CO, a meaningful but not extreme shift. The move decision turns on which budget category creates the 2.9-point overall gap.

This route crosses the national benchmark: Fort Collins-Loveland is above 100 while Prescott Valley-Prescott is below it. That makes the move a change of price regime, not merely a rank swap.

Comparable population context is incomplete for this pair, so no market-scale explanation is inferred from the price indexes.

For a housing-sensitive move, validate the rent gap first: HUD Fair Market Rent and the actual unit size can overturn what the blended index implies. On the BEA ratio alone, $100,000 in Fort Collins-Loveland corresponds to $97,159 in Prescott Valley-Prescott.

Fort Collins-Loveland
101.1
Cost Index
Prescott Valley-Prescott
98.3
Cost Index

Salary Equivalents

What a salary in Fort Collins-Loveland would need to be in Prescott Valley-Prescott for the same purchasing power:

In Fort Collins-Loveland In Prescott Valley-Prescott Difference
$50,000 $48,580 $-1,420
$75,000 $72,869 $-2,131
$100,000 $97,159 $-2,841
$150,000 $145,739 $-4,261
$ in Fort Collins-Loveland = in Prescott Valley-Prescott

Same BEA Regional Price Parity ratio as the table above (101.1 → 98.3), computed live from your number, nothing is sent anywhere.

How the Price Gap Changed

Fort Collins-Loveland and Prescott Valley-Prescott share 17 published annual releases from 2008 through 2024. Their overall gap narrowed, moving from 5.8 to 2.9 RPP points. Fort Collins-Loveland remained the higher-index metro in the latest release.

Rents changed the most within this pair: its gap moved 33.1 points between the first and latest shared releases (11.3 to 21.8 points). This describes a relative price-index history, not a forecast or a household budget.

Release Year Fort Collins-Loveland RPP Prescott Valley-Prescott RPP Relative Gap
2008 97.2 103.0 5.8 points Prescott Valley-Prescott higher
2012 104.7 96.5 8.2 points Fort Collins-Loveland higher
2016 101.4 98.6 2.8 points Fort Collins-Loveland higher
2020 98.5 93.2 5.3 points Fort Collins-Loveland higher
2024 101.1 98.3 2.9 points Fort Collins-Loveland higher

Annual BEA Regional Price Parity releases; a higher index means a higher price level relative to the national average of 100. Selected years shown from the full shared series.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Prescott Valley-Prescott more expensive than Fort Collins-Loveland?

Prescott Valley-Prescott is 2.8% less expensive than Fort Collins-Loveland. The overall cost index is 98.3 vs 101.1 (national average = 100).

What salary in Prescott Valley-Prescott equals $100K in Fort Collins-Loveland?

A $100,000 salary in Fort Collins-Loveland has the same purchasing power as $97,159 in Prescott Valley-Prescott. This is based on the BEA Regional Price Parity indexes.

How do rents compare between Fort Collins-Loveland and Prescott Valley-Prescott?

Rents in Fort Collins-Loveland are indexed at 120.6 while Prescott Valley-Prescott is at 98.8 (national average = 100). Fort Collins-Loveland has higher rents.

Data sourced from official public datasets, Regional Price Parities (2024), index where national average = 100. Retrieved and formatted by PlainCost. See our methodology for details.

Every figure on PlainCost is rendered directly from BEA Regional Price Parity source data, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, our changelog, or report a data error. Data current as of 2026-08-11. Rankings measure the published cost-of-living index only; we don't recommend where to live or rate any metro's quality of life.