Realty Income (NYSE: O) is all about dividend income. The company calls itself The Monthly Dividend Company. Part of its corporate mission is to “deliver dependable monthly dividends that increase over time.”
Here’s how much dividend income you’d have collected if you bought 100 shares of the real estate investment trust (REIT) a decade ago.
Will AI create the world’s first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an “Indispensable Monopoly” providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue »
It would have cost about $5,163 to buy 100 shares of Realty Income at the end of 2015. At the time, the company paid a monthly dividend of around $0.19 per share ($2.29 annualized). As a result, you’d have collected $229.20 in dividends the first year of owning the shares. That’s a 5.7% yield on your cost basis.
Realty Income has steadily raised its monthly dividend over the past decade. As of the end of 2025, the REIT has increased its payment by 41% overall. As a result, those same 100 shares would now generate $324 in annual dividend income, increasing the yield on your cost basis to 6.3%. Overall, you’d have earned a cumulative $3,030.90 in dividends over those 10 years. That’s 59% of your original investment paid back in dividends. Meanwhile, the original 100 shares would have been worth $5,637 at the end of last year. That’s a 9% increase on your original investment and a nearly 68% total return on your original investment (dividend income plus share price increase).
The REIT’s ability to grow its dividend has really paid off for investors over that period. Realty Income routinely invests in additional income-producing real estate, which steadily grows its income, supporting its rising dividend. With one of the best balance sheets in the sector and a multi-trillion-dollar total investable market opportunity, Realty Income’s high-yielding dividend should continue rising. That makes it an ideal way to make passive income from real estate.
Before you buy stock in Realty Income, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Realty Income wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $519,015!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,086,211!*
