I'd agree that unless you live in Breck or another ski town, the average low is somewhat misleading. There are days in January where it's 60 degrees out. The nights do get cold, but the climate is VERY different from anywhere with humidity. Our heat does not persist once the sun goes down. Right now the evenings are still warm, because our high temp is 95-100 F during the day, but when I wake up at 530 am, it's usually 60 F out.
I've lived in Colorado Springs and Fort Collins for the last 25 years, and I'd say yearly, we have maybe two snowfalls that persist longer than two or three days. Generally the sun melts it all off within 24 hours of snowfall. Again, that's along the Front Range/I25 corridor. If you're up in the mountains, it's a different story.
There are some smaller towns in the foothills region between Fort Collins and Boulder that are possibly more affordable, but the main towns in this area - Fort Collins, Loveland, Longmont, Boulder, Golden, even Greeley and Windsor - are getting much more expensive than they used to be. Generally I really like Fort Collins. It's very bikeable, not too much of a drive to the mountains or foothills for hiking or camping, lots of lakes/rivers/streams (for Colorado anyway), etc. There is a lot of new home construction going on, though, so there are a large number of people moving here and it's definitely getting more crowded. It's still tiny compared to any big city on the East coast, I'd imagine.