I’m Building a $2,000-a-Month Passive Income Portfolio. Here Are the Exact Dividend Stocks.

If you are looking for two grand a month and you have capital, you’re likely past at least your fifties. Dividend stocks like Realty Income (NYSE:O | O Price Prediction), LTC Properties (NYSE:LTC), and Diversified Royalty (OTCMKTS:BEVFF) are your best bets, and each of them will serve a different purpose for your portfolio.

If I were to build a $2,000-a-month dividend portfolio today, I would start with a minimum of $480k. That looks like a lot, but that’s where a 5% yield fetches you $2,000 a month. If you don’t have that amount, you can look into covered-call ETFs with very high yields, but I do not think they’re worth going for unless you are over 70. 

If your dividend portfolio is giving you a better yield than some long-term Treasuries, while giving you “exposure” to the market, there’s always a big catch involved. You shouldn’t touch anything with a double-digit yield unless you really know what that catch is.

But without further ado, let’s look into the stocks that can realistically replace or double what you get from Social Security.

Realty Income (O)

Fun fact: out of all the Dividend Aristocrat stocks out there, only five of them yield above 5%. And out of those five, only one pays monthly, and that’s Realty Income. That’s why this REIT stock is called The Monthly Dividend Company. It has been paying rising monthly dividends for decades, and I’d argue it’s safer than many mainstream dividend ETFs on its own.

But how come?

Realty Income looks scary if you went through 2008 and you automatically view all real estate investments as risky. In 2026, that’s no longer the case. These companies have learned a lot since then and have weathered the fast-paced interest rate hikes since 2022, and have kept gushing cash.

Realty Income in particular has some of the strongest characteristics because its tenants are mostly retail businesses that themselves are quite defensive. These tenants miss payments once in a blue moon, and occupancy remains high regardless of the broader economic environment. In 2008, Realty Income still had a 97% occupancy rate.

O stock yields over 5%, pays monthly, and I’d argue has 30%-plus upside within the next two years as interest rates eventually come down.

LTC Properties (LTC)

Before you ask, yes, this is another REIT. If you are looking for monthly dividend stocks that yield high and are reliable, most of the options you will find are REITs. However, real estate companies aren’t a monolith, and it’s fine to have a good chunk of your dividend portfolio invested in them if you know what the underlying business is doing.

For LTC Properties, it is a business that invests in senior housing and healthcare properties. If you look at the long-term megatrends, it’s clear why it’s worth investing here because senior housing is heading into a critical shortage due to demographic issues, and the issues keep piling on.

Experts say there will be a shortage of 550,000 to over 600,000 units by 2030. I believe the coming decades are going to be very fruitful for this company as senior housing supply tightens and margins rise. And it should tighten much faster than most other real estate sectors, as not many people are paying attention to the impending nursing home crunch.

You get a 5.96% monthly dividend yield to get exposure to this under-the-radar sector.

Diversified Royalty (BEVFF)

There are very few options outside of real estate that can give you a high monthly yield through just one dividend stock, that too reliably. BEVFF is among the strongest options right now, though the catch is that it is a smaller business. If you’re willing to dip your toes into a <$1 billion company in exchange for solid upside potential and monthly yields, I’d look into BEVFF stock.

This is a multi-royalty company that acquires “predictable, growing royalty streams from a diverse group of multi-location businesses and franchisors”. In short, it invests in safer cash flow streams and then returns that cash back to you in the form of dividends, plus some capital gains.

And the business has a very good track record in the past decade.

It has taken some hits during downturns, but BEVFF has managed to climb back out every time. You get a 6.6% yield.

Of the $33 million in operating cash flow over the past 12 months, it put $28 million into dividends and $1 million into stock-based compensation. I’d expect the dividend growth rate to be ~5% annually going forward, which is in line with earnings growth expectations. It’s tight, but again, you’re unlikely to find a safer dividend stock with a higher monthly yield.