5 Overlooked Dividend Stocks Paying Up to 17.5%. Here’s the Catch

Most income investors stick to the same few household names. All five stocks here are much smaller: the largest, Gladstone Commercial (NASDAQ:GOOD), has a market cap of about $572 million, and four of the five pay monthly. Every forward yield on this list sits above 6%. The range runs from 6.5% at Gladstone Land (NASDAQ:LAND) to 17.5% at BCP Investment (NASDAQ:BCIC). That makes each one an ultra-high-yield name. Dividend safety still decides the ranking, and the list starts with the best-covered payout.

Gladstone Commercial: Industrial Rents With Room to Spare

Gladstone Commercial pays $0.10 per month, or $1.20 per year, on a forward basis. At $11.82 a share, that’s a 10.2% forward yield.

Dividend safety: This is the best-covered payout on the list. Second-quarter Core FFO (funds from operations, the standard REIT cash-earnings measure) came in at $0.38 per share, well above the $0.045 consensus. The quarterly distribution is $0.30. Rent collection was 100% in every month of the second quarter and through July. The 151-property portfolio is 98.7% leased. The preferred stock (Series E, F, and G) and the senior common stock are all current on payments. The record includes a reduction: the monthly payout was cut from $0.1254 to $0.10 starting with the January 19, 2023 ex-date. It has stayed at $0.10 every month since.

Bull case: Management is selling non-core assets and reinvesting the proceeds in industrial buildings. It bought a 153,890 sq ft industrial property for $22.8 million at a 6.76% cap rate and sold a non-core asset for $12.9 million. After the quarter, it added a 146,650-sq-ft building for $6.6 million at a 9.16% cap rate. Same-store rents have grown 2% or more a year in recent years. Revenue rose 11.3% year over year to $43.99 million. The stock is still up 19.2% year to date, even after falling 7.94% over the past week. The average analyst target is $14.12.

Risk: A lease termination fee from a sold property inflated the second-quarter Core FFO, so that figure exaggerates normal earnings. Occupancy also slid from 99.1% to 98.7%. Management lists inflation and interest rates as challenges, and a single large tenant default would hit a portfolio this size hard.

Gladstone Capital: Lending Income Covers the Payout With a Cushion

Gladstone Capital (NASDAQ:GLAD) pays $0.15 a month, or $1.80 a year on a forward basis. At $18.39, the forward yield is 9.8%. The company also paid an additional $0.18 distribution with a September 10, 2026 ex-date, bringing the trailing 12-month total to $1.98.

Dividend safety: For a business development company (BDC), net investment income (NII) is the number that funds the dividend. Gladstone Capital earned $0.49 per share of NII in its fiscal third quarter, beating the $0.47 consensus. The quarter’s distributions amounted to $0.45. In the quarter before that, NII covered 116% of cash distributions. The balance sheet has room to grow: the company sold $60 million of 7% notes due December 2029 and has more than $170 million available on its bank line. It has paid monthly throughout its full history, though the regular amount reset from $0.165 to $0.15 in late 2025.

Bull case: Gladstone Capital loans to lower-middle-market companies, and its weighted average portfolio yield is 11.8%. It put $66.7 million into four new portfolio companies last quarter. CEO Bob Marcotte said strong deal flow and current spreads will sustain distributions through the rest of 2026. The stock trades at about 9 times earnings and 0.901 times book value. Analysts have three Buy ratings and two Holds, with an average target of $22.

Risk: Non-earning investments rose to five companies, totaling $26.7 million, or 3.1% of debt investments at fair value. The portfolio yield has already fallen from 12.2% to 11.8%, and lower floating rates would reduce the coverage buffer.

Gladstone Land: 162 Straight Monthly Checks While Waiting on Its Fourth Quarter

Gladstone Land pays $0.0467 per month, or $0.5604 per year, on a forward basis. At $8.63, that is a 6.5% forward yield, the lowest on this list.

Dividend safety: This payout needs the most patience. The second-quarter GAAP loss of $0.32 per share missed the -$0.28 estimate. Two items drove it: a roughly $4.2 million non-cash impairment on four Arizona farms, and about $5.1 million in preferred dividends and extinguishment costs. Cash flow looks much better. Operating cash flow rose 404.7% to $19.9 million. First-quarter AFFO (adjusted funds from operations) was $0.08 per share, against a quarterly distribution of $0.1401. That gap exists because most of the year’s revenue arrives in the fourth quarter. The balance sheet buffers the problem: about 96% of debt is fixed-rate, more than $120 million of capital is available right away, and more than $110 million of properties are unencumbered. The record is consistent: 162 consecutive monthly cash distributions since the January 2013 IPO. The monthly rate rose from $0.03 in 2014 to $0.0467 by mid-2024 and has stayed there since.

Bull case: Crop prices are moving in Gladstone Land’s favor. The main pistachio processor raised its initial 2026 base price by 67% to $2.50 per pound, and almond prices are 15% to 20% higher than a year ago. Seven lease amendments signed after the quarter are expected to add about $297,000 of annual NOI (net operating income), a 16.5% increase. The stock trades at 0.611 times book value.

Risk: 2026 is an “off” year for pistachios, which bear heavily one year and lightly the next. A March heat event in California further hurt the crop. Occupancy fell to 95.4%, and the shares are down 10.75% in the past week.

Crescent Capital BDC: Dividend Already Cut, Trading Near Half of Book Value

Crescent Capital BDC (NASDAQ:CCAP) pays a regular quarterly dividend of $0.34, or $1.36 a year. At $8.54, that is a 15.9% forward yield. It also pays small specials on top: the third $0.03 special has a November 30 record date and pays December 15.

Dividend safety: The board has already reset the payout. It cut the regular dividend from $0.42 to $0.34, ending a run of $0.41-$0.42 quarterly payments that began in 2020. Second-quarter adjusted NII of $0.36 fell short of the $0.37 estimate but still covers the new $0.34 rate. Management also cut its fees effective April 1, 2026: the base management fee fell from 1.25% to 1.00%, and the incentive fee from 17.5% to 15.0%. Leverage is moderate, with net debt-to-equity of 1.37x.

Bull case: The 192-company portfolio is mostly first-lien and unitranche senior secured debt. The manager is part of Crescent Capital Group, which has about $50 billion in assets under management and sits inside Sun Life’s SLC Management. The shares trade at 0.543 times book value and about 7 times forward earnings. The average analyst target is $12.25.

Risk: 98.4% of the debt book is floating-rate, and yields on income-producing securities have fallen to 9.6% from 10.4%. Net asset value (NAV) per share dropped to $17.82 from $19.55 a year earlier. The stock is down 32.39% year-to-date.

BCP Investment: The Smallest Name With the Largest Yield

BCP Investment pays a $0.09 monthly base distribution, or $1.08 a year on a forward basis. At $6.18, the forward yield is 17.5%. Its market cap is only about $77 million.

Dividend safety: GAAP NII of $0.45 beat the $0.41 estimate. However, that figure includes $2.227 million of purchase discount accretion, a one-time accounting gain left over from earlier mergers. Core NII without it was $0.27, exactly equal to the $0.27 in base distributions for the quarter. The balance sheet is in better shape. The KeyBank credit line doubled from $75 million to $150 million, the borrowing spread fell 30 basis points, and maturity moved out to August 2031. The company also bought back 172,159 shares, adding $0.07 to NAV. The payout history has been unstable: quarterly payments of $0.69 in 2024 fell to $0.47-$0.54 in 2025, before the switch to monthly payments in March 2026.

Bull case: The board has approved the $0.09 rate through December 2026. The portfolio is 63.4% first-lien debt spread across 107 borrowers. The shares trade at 0.491 times book value and about 6 times forward earnings.

Risk: There is no coverage buffer. NAV fell 7.1% to $14.49, and about 47% of the markdowns came from software-related loans. Non-accruals (loans that have stopped paying interest) are 5.7% of cost. The shares are down 40.61% year to date.

Five Payouts, Five Different Safety Profiles

Gladstone Commercial and Gladstone Capital earn more than they pay out, which makes them the core of this group. Gladstone Land has a long record of continuous monthly payments and depends on a strong fourth quarter. Crescent Capital BDC and BCP Investment offer the highest yields at deep discounts to book value, but their dividends depend on whether net asset value stops falling. November ex-dates and record dates for all five fall between Nov. 19 and Nov. 30. Four of the five pay every 30 days, which is the whole appeal of monthly payers; we rounded up seven of our favorites in a free report on monthly dividend stocks.

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