Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville vs Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater

Cost of living comparison based on BEA Regional Price Parities. Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater is 3.7% more expensive than Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville.

3.7% more expensive

Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater, WA is 3.7% more expensive than Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, FL on BEA Regional Price Parities (overall RPP 103.7 vs 100.0). A $100,000 salary in Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville buys about the same as $103,665 in Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater; the largest component gap is goods.

  • Overall RPP 100.0 (Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville) vs 103.7 (Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater)
  • $100k in Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville ≈ $103,665 purchasing power in Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater
  • Goods drives the gap (+8.8 RPP points)

RPP parity plate

Pair FL:WA 100.0→103.7

TIER-NEAR · CROSS-STATE · GOODS-LED · BOTH-ABOVE · PP-SHIFT

  • TIER-NEAR Near tier
  • CROSS-STATE FL × WA
  • GOODS-LED Goods-led gap
  • BOTH-ABOVE Both above 100
  • 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.

What This Comparison Actually Tells You

Both metros exceed the U.S. benchmark of 100. The choice is between two national premiums, so local wages need to clear the higher baseline in either market.

Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater, WA is 3.7% more expensive than Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, FL, a meaningful but not extreme shift. The move decision turns on which budget category creates the 3.7-point overall gap.

Goods leads the difference, with Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater 8.8 points higher than Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville. Goods, services, and rents all point in the same broad direction, making the headline comparison more transferable across household types.

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

For a goods-led difference, remember that many tradable prices vary less by address than housing or labor-priced services. Use $103,665 in Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater as the BEA equivalent of $100,000 in Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, then replace the national basket with your own.

Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville
100.0
Cost Index
Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater
103.7
Cost Index

How the Price Gap Changed

Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville and Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater share 17 published annual releases from 2008 through 2024. Their overall gap narrowed, moving from 5.4 to 3.7 RPP points. Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater remained the higher-index metro in the latest release.

Services changed the most within this pair: its gap moved 18.8 points between the first and latest shared releases (15.1 to 3.6 points). This describes a relative price-index history, not a forecast or a household budget.

Release Year Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville RPP Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater RPP Relative Gap
2008 99.9 105.4 5.4 points Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater higher
2012 98.0 101.3 3.3 points Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater higher
2016 98.8 106.0 7.2 points Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater higher
2020 96.8 101.9 5.1 points Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater higher
2024 100.0 103.7 3.7 points Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater 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.

Category Breakdown

Visual Comparison

Overall
Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville
100.0
Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater
103.7
Goods
Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville
96.2
Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater
105.0
Services
Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville
88.1
Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater
91.7
Rents
Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville
111.7
Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater
116.7

Vertical line = national average (100)

Salary Equivalents

What a salary in Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville would need to be in Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater for the same purchasing power:

In Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville In Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater Difference
$50,000 $51,832 +$1,832
$75,000 $77,749 +$2,749
$100,000 $103,665 +$3,665
$150,000 $155,497 +$5,497
$ in Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville = in Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater

Same BEA Regional Price Parity ratio as the table above (100.0 → 103.7), computed live from your number, nothing is sent anywhere.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater more expensive than Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville?

Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater is 3.7% more expensive than Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville. The overall cost index is 103.7 vs 100.0 (national average = 100).

What salary in Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater equals $100K in Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville?

A $100,000 salary in Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville has the same purchasing power as $103,665 in Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater. This is based on the BEA Regional Price Parity indexes.

How do rents compare between Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville and Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater?

Rents in Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville are indexed at 111.7 while Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater is at 116.7 (national average = 100). Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater 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.