Quarterly payers are the norm. But monthly dividends…. Yeah, that’s that stuff.
Today we’ll chat about five monthly divvies that yield between 5.8% and 16.3% per year. That’s right, these stocks pay early, often and heavy.
What’s wrong with a plain ‘ol quarterly dividend? Let’s consider using my Income Calendar dividend projection tool. If we put $100K into each of the top five stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, here is the lumpy, inconsistent and sad income picture we are looking at:
Dividends From Top 5 Dow Stocks
Source: Income Calendar
Lumpy and, let’s be honest—lame.
Instead let’s consider our five monthly payers. Drop $100K into each and now we are talkin’:
Dividends From These 5 Monthly Payers
Source: Income Calendar
Note the 10.5% yield, too! Yee haw. It’s powered by five payers dishing between 5.8% and 16.3% yields.
Buy, hold or sell these generous monthly payers? Let’s explore each one.
Healthpeak Properties (DOC)
Dividend Yield: 6.6%
Healthpeak Properties (DOC) is new to the monthly divvie game. Welcome, DOC!
DOC is a healthcare REIT that also dabbles in retirement facilities. It boasts roughly 700 properties, including outpatient medical facilities (50% of portfolio income), laboratories (35%), and senior housing (15%). Its tenants include biopharma firms, health systems, physician groups, medical device manufacturers, and retirement housing companies, among others.
In February 2025, Healthpeak announced it would switch to monthly dividends starting in April. It also bumped up its dividend—from 30 cents per share to 30.5 cents for the February quarterly, which translated to 10.17 cents once the monthly payments got going a couple months later. That comes out to a meager sub-2% hike, but it’s an important step in the right direction considering its prior two dividend changes were cuts (36% in 2016, then 19% in 2021).
Dividend Investors Are Far From Whole, But It’s Progress
Better still, the distribution represents less than 75% of projected adjusted funds from operations (AFFO) for 2025, which is a healthy REIT payout ratio that leaves room for modest dividend growth going forward.
Growth isn’t as clean-cut. Healthpeak’s heavy life sciences exposure could be problematic given poor current fundamentals in that industry, but tailwinds in senior housing could bode well for its continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs). At 11 times 2025 estimates for AFFO, we’re not paying much—at least compared to the healthcare REIT industry—to find out.
EPR Properties (EPR)
Dividend Yield: 5.8%
EPR Properties (EPR) is an “experiential” REIT. As in, it deals in experiences—a segment of spending that, were it not for a pandemic-sparked interruption, would have been a virtually straight line up and to the right for the past quarter-century.
Want to see a movie? We may visit an AMC Entertainment (AMC) theater. Hit a bucket of balls? Then we’ll head to TopGolf. Get a pump in? Let’s hit the gym. These types of properties comprise EPR’s 331-property portfolio.
Source: EPR Properties Q1 2025 Investor Presentation
A few months ago, we discussed a business segment (theaters) that was once a liability for EPR was becoming an asset once more:
“Theaters still account for 36% of adjusted EBITDA, so it can still capture some of the rebound in theaters as Americans return to the movies. That’s good, because North America’s box-office gross is expected to improve by double digits in 2025, while AMC’s master lease is slated to increase by 7.5% this year.”
While North America’s Q1 box office gross was actually down year-over-year, Q2 has outperformed, and Q3 is off to a great start with the hit release of Superman. Also, on July 1, a 7.5% rent increase on AMC kicked in. All of this has conspired to drive EPR to a REIT-beating first half of 2025.
A Stock-Market Smash (And a Dividend Hike to Boot)
Longer-term, EPR is seeing improving costs of capital, which means management can start making acquisitions again. Shorter-term, EPR might have a harder time replicating its first-half pace, if only because its P/AFFO has thickened up from just 9 in January to around 12 today.
Gladstone Commercial (GOOD)
Dividend Yield: 8.5%
Gladstone Commercial (GOOD) is part of the Gladstone family of REITs and BDCs, which also includes Gladstone Land (LAND), Gladstone Investment (GAIN) and Gladstone Capital (GLAD).
GOOD is a straight-up equity REIT—one that owns 141 single-tenant and anchored multi-tenant net-leased properties. Those properties are leased out to 107 unique tenants, typically in long-term leases of seven years or longer. Overall occupancy is 98.4%, though that’s carried by industrial tenants (99.4%), which are making up for the office tenants (91.7%).
Speaking of office tenants, Gladstone Commercial has been deliberately moving away from that particular business. Seven years ago, office properties accounted for 65% of annualized straight-line rent. Today? That number is 35%.
Source: Gladstone Commercial May 2025 Investor Presentation
On the one hand, Gladstone’s move away from office buildings makes sense given the lousy environment of the past half-decade. However, it also means GOOD is less exposed to the return-to-office rebound.
For now, we want to see Gladstone reverse its multiyear trend of declining FFO. It’s not quite in dividend trouble yet—its monthly dividend comes out to $1.20 annually vs. $1.43 in FFO over the trailing 12 months; 85% is high but not alarming—but we need some reason to believe shares can escape nearly six years of rangebound trading.
Prospect Capital (PSEC)
Dividend Yield: 16.3%
Prospect Capital (PSEC) is a business development company that provides private debt and private equity to middle-market companies. It currently boasts 114 portfolio investments in 33 industries, most notably real estate, consumer finance, and health care. Roughly three-quarters of its portfolio is first lien and other secured debt, though it will also make equity investments.
I frequently keep my eye on PSEC both because it’s one of the largest BDCs, at well more than $1 billion in market capitalization, and because it frequently sports a double-digit yield. But I also frequently warn about Prospect Capital because it’s a serial dividend cutter. For instance, I called it out in October 2024, and just a few weeks later, it hacked its payout down by 25%.
Then in February, I highlighted PSEC among several Wall Street consensus Sell calls, and I couldn’t help but agree with the pros.
PSEC Is Down Another ~20% Since Then
Prospect Capital is now the cheapest BDC on the market, trading at just 46% of NAV. That means we’re paying just 46 cents for every dollar in PSEC’s assets—while collecting a wild yield above 16%. That’s cheap, but is it a deal? It’s more like a falling knife with its net investment income (NII) in a doom loop.
AGNC Investment Corp. (AGNC)
Dividend Yield: 15.5%
AGNC Investment Corp. (AGNC) deals in “paper” real estate (i.e., mortgages). It’s one of the largest mortgage real estate investment trusts (mREITs), at more than $9 billion in market cap.
For those unfamiliar with mREITs: These companies make money by borrowing at short-term rates to purchase mortgages, which deliver income at long-term rates. Their profit is the difference, so the hope, of course, is that short-term rates are lower than long-term rates (which they typically are).
AGNC is an “agency” mREIT that deals in residential mortgage-backed securities (MBSs) from government agencies such as the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) and the Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae).
Agency MBSes tend to be much safer than their private counterparts because the federal government backs agency mortgages (or in the case of Ginnie Mae, mortgage securities). As a result, agency mREITs tend to use a lot of debt leverage to make the most out of their investments—a welcome accelerant when rates head lower, but problematic when rates are high and headed north.
As the chart here shows, the rate environment (and the rate-expectation environment) has been volatile over the past year or so. But spreads are tightening again, and importantly, AGNC is doing more with that than the mREIT industry as a whole.
AGNC Gets More Out of Better Rate Environments
Despite its performance, AGNC is among the cheaper mREITs right now, at just less than 6 times earnings estimates for this year. Dividend coverage is on the tight side (~90%), though. That’s manageable—as long as hedging-related expenses don’t get out of hand.
A Fully Paid Retirement for Just $500,000?
Several of these stocks meet the two most important income baselines we’re looking for in retirement:
- Yields around the 8% mark. With that level of income, we can retire on dividends alone.
- Income that’s paid monthly. Our bills come every month. We want our retirement income to be paid out every bit as frequently.
But remember: Our goal is a retirement where we’re not looking over our shoulders. We can’t get that by buying habitual dividend cutters. And we can’t get that if we’re sweating every time the Federal Reserve makes a rate announcement.
That’s what sets my 8%+ Monthly Payer Portfolio apart.
The 8%+ Monthly Payer portfolio is a group of generous stocks and funds that pay us enough to live on dividends alone—without ever needing to sell a single share to generate cash, and without worrying about wild swings in the market.
Why am I laser-focused on earning 8%? Just check out the math:
- A $500,000 nest egg could earn $40,000—depending on where you live, that could be enough for a fully paid retirement on its own.
- You could generate a $48,000 annual dividend “salary” from a $600,000 nest egg.
- And if you have managed to stow away a cool million bucks to work with, the 8% Monthly Payer Portfolio could pay you an equally cool $80,000 in dividend income every year.
And these holdings pay us each and every month. That means no “lumpy” payouts. No complex dividend calendars. No dumping money into B-list stocks because it’s the only way to make sure you collect enough income every third month.
Just paydays every bit as predictable as when your employer was sending you checks.
Don’t miss out on these terrific income plays while you can still get in at bargain prices. Click here for all the details, and turn your portfolio into a monthly dividend machine.