Are you on track with investing for your age?

Wednesday, July 22, 2026

Sarah Coles

Head of Personal Finance

If you’re waiting for the perfect moment to do anything in life, there’s a risk you’ll never get around to it. And when it comes to saving and investing, you’ll pay a real price for the delay. So, it can help to know when other people have taken the plunge, and just how they’re doing, to see whether we’re on track, or if we need to get cracking. Here are the ages that are financial landmarks among AJ Bell customers.

First year of life: Junior ISA accounts are most commonly opened

The most popular time to open an AJ Bell Junior ISA (JISA) is in the first year of a child’s life. It’s a great idea for when you have a newborn, so anyone who wants to celebrate the birth can do so with a gift into the JISA that they’ll appreciate far more than a new rattle or babygrow.

However, people aren’t just using them for one-off payments. The first year of a child’s life is also the most popular time to set up a regular direct debit into the account. If this is a bit of a stretch in the expensive early years, talk to grandparents and the wider family. They may be able to make manageable monthly payments that will keep building a valuable nest egg for when they’re 18.

Age 25 to 26: The most Stocks and shares ISAs are opened

The fact that the most common age to open a Stocks and shares ISA overall is 18 is a testament to the success of the Junior ISA, and how many people have already become investors before they leave childhood.

Excluding maturing JISAs, the most popular age to open an AJ Bell Stocks and shares ISA is either 25 or 26. By this age, people will have started work and have a few years under their belt. They’ll have got to grips with their expenses and are likely to have been in a workplace pension for a few years. They don’t necessarily have vast sums of cash to put away if they’re at the start of their career, but making a start investing this early can make an enormous difference to the rest of their life. If you reach this age and investments aren’t on your radar at all, it’s worth at least investigating what it has to offer.

Age 27: When Lifetime ISAs are most frequently used for property purchases

This is the most common age to use an AJ Bell Lifetime ISA to buy a property (measured as people making penalty-free withdrawals). Given that, overall, the average age to buy a first property is 34 in the UK, there’s a decent chance the government bonus has played a vital role in helping people build the deposits they need to get onto the property ladder.

You can pay up to £4,000 a year into a LISA and the government will top it up by 25%. The LISA will eventually be replaced by a new scheme for first-time buyers, but the date of the replacement, and the size of the government top up on the new scheme haven’t been confirmed. Meanwhile, the government has emphasised anyone opening a LISA before it’s replaced will be able to pay into it and get the bonus as usual for as long as they want, so there’s still enormous benefit in taking advantage of the LISA. For anyone under the age of 27, it may be worth getting started at a younger age, while you still can.

Age 33: Most likely age to make contributions

ISA customers who are age 33 have the highest percentage making an ISA contribution than any other age group on the platform. Some people will be on higher incomes or have made investment a key priority early in life, so will have been making the most of their ISAs for years. However, others will have waited until they were on a firmer financial footing before they made a start.

If you haven’t started investing, it’s a decent time to take stock. You may have other pressing priorities, or a gap in income which means now isn’t the time for you. Otherwise, this may well be an opportunity to start your investment journey.

Age 39: Most likely to open a Lifetime ISA

This is the oldest you can be when you open a Lifetime ISA, although once it’s open, you can keep paying into it until the age of 50. It’s also the age when people are most likely to open an AJ Bell LISA. The rush at 39 might be from some people keeping their options open, just in case they want to use a LISA later.

However, there’s more to it than that, because this is the age when people are most likely to start regular payments into an AJ Bell LISA too. It’s a flexible option for retirement savings, especially for basic rate taxpayers who work for themselves or who have already taken advantage of any employer contributions to their pension. It can also be helpful for anyone who has maxed out their pension contributions. If you want to take advantage of the LISA, it’s worth doing so sooner rather than later, while you still can.

Age 56: Most likely to max out their Stocks and shares ISA

Age 56 is the most common age to max out an AJ Bell Stocks and shares ISA.** One key driver is likely to be from people who have taken the tax-free cash from a pension, who want to keep it invested tax-efficiently.

If you want investments to grow within a tax-efficient environment, then there’s no need to take the cash at 55, because a pension is a great home for your money. By leaving your cash where it is, you also give the pot chance to grow, so you can eventually withdraw a bigger sum.

However, some people have taken tax-free cash because of a lack of reassurance from the government that they’re not going to tinker with the rules. While this is a decision which should be carefully thought through, if you’re going to do this, then a Stocks and shares ISA is a sensible home for your money.

The fact this is a key time for maxing out is also partly down to the fact many people will be empty nesters. Their offspring may have moved out or started working and contributing to the household, so they may have more money to work with and more opportunities to save. It means they can concentrate on building as much for retirement as they can, as soon as they can, in a mixture of pensions and ISAs.

If you’ve reached the empty nest period, it’s worth using a pensions calculator and factoring in additional savings and investments. If you have a shortfall, you can consider whether you can afford to put more aside for the future, to make up for lost time.

Age 63: Average age of a SIPP millionaire

This is the average age of AJ Bell SIPP millionaires, but if you haven’t quite got there, there’s no need to panic. It was always bound to be the age when people have built as much as possible in their pension and start spending it down. However, it’s a handy reminder that a commitment to pension investing from an early age, sticking with it whenever possible, and investing strategically, can help build a really substantial pot for the kind of retirement you always wanted.

Age 70: Average age of an ISA millionaire

This is the most common age of AJ Bell ISA millionaires. This isn’t going to be a target for everyone, but it’s a great demonstration of the power of compounding over time. By investing consistently over the decades, ISA millionaires haven’t had to take enormous risks or trade on a daily basis. They’re evidence of how successful a ‘get rich slow’ plan can be.

*Based on existing customers on the AJ Bell platform, as of 29 June 2026
**Refers to tax years since 2017/18, when the ISA allowance has been set at £20,000

The SNOWBALL currently earns income of 11k per year.

If you re-invest the dividends at a blended yield of 7% it will double every ten years.

So in twenty years, from now, your snowball should be yielding 44% per year. Better if Mr. Market allows you to re-invest at a higher yield as you can shorten the journey. You may not be a millionaire but you should be able to spend like one. GL

How can I learn the secrets of the passive income millionaires?

Story by Alan Oscroft

 • 8mo

I’ve been doing a bit of research on the habits of successful passive income investors, and I came across a bit of a surprise.

They all seem to name dividend stocks as a major part of their investment portfolios — though that’s not the surprising part. No, what I hadn’t expected was to find a large number of them recommending real estate.

Yes, real estate has been profitable for a number of people. But I had a very shaky venture into it. And it has a fair few drawbacks for individual investors.

Not really passive

One is that many of us won’t have the capital to go for, say, rental properties. It’s not the kind of thing we can get started with just a few hundred pounds, like we can with a Stocks and Shares ISA.

It’s not entirely passive either. Finding tenants, collecting rent consistently, and maintenance all take time and effort. And the latter can sometimes prove very costly if you’re unlucky.

But there’s a way we can get into real estate without facing those major hurdles. And that’s to consider buying real estate investment trusts (REITs). They’re investment companies that put their money into various kinds of properties, and they do all the management. All we have to do is buy shares in them, just as we do with shares in general.

Healthy property

I like Primary Health Properties (LSE: PHP), which invests in GP surgeries, pharmacies, dental clinics. Importantly, they’re mostly rented to the NHS on long-term leases.

Having the UK government as its main customer provides some stability and predictability. But it hasn’t made the trust immune to weak property values in recent times. Over the past five years, the PHP share price has fallen 35%.

Higher interest rates are a burden, especially with debt on the books. At the end of the first half this year, net debt reached £1,367m, up from £1,323m in December 2024. There doesn’t seem to be any liquidity problem, but it could keep the shares down for longer.

Big dividends

On the bright side, a lower share price means a bigger dividend yield. Right now, we’re looking at a forecast 7.3%. And analysts are forecasting rises between now and 2027. We could have long-term capital appreciation too — especially when interest rates fall.

Is Primary Health one to consider for long-term passive income? Even in the current tough real estate market, I think it has to be, especially while the share price is low.

There are plenty of other REITs to choose from, addressing different sectors of the property market.

Please note that tax treatment depends on the individual circumstances of each client and may be subject to change in future. The content in this article is provided for information purposes only. It is not intended to be, neither does it constitute, any form of tax advice.

Millionaire style

Quite a few millionaire investors also invest for deferred income. That is, they aim for total returns — capital and dividends — and plan to convert it to income later.

So how do we emulate the millionaire approach to passive income? If we focus mainly on dividend shares, include a REIT or two in our portfolio, and look for long-term growth opportunities too — we could get pretty close. And we don’t have to be millionaires to start.

PHP current yield 7.5% Currently xd.

Alternative Income REIT PLC

(the “Company” or “Group” or “AIRE“)

DIVIDEND DECLARATION

Declares a fourth interim dividend of 1.40 pence per share (“pps”) for the quarter ended 30 June 2026

The target annual dividend of no less than 5.6pps for the year ending 30 June 2026 has been met^†

Dividend Declaration and Dividend Cover 

The Board of Directors of Alternative Income REIT PLC (ticker: AIRE), the owner of a diversified portfolio of UK commercial property assets, predominantly let on long leases with index-linked rent reviews, declares an interim dividend for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.

The Board is pleased to declare that it has met its annual dividend target of 5.6 pps for the year ended 30 June 2026, following the declaration today of a fourth interim dividend of 1.40 pps for the quarter ended 30 June 2026. This interim dividend will be distributed as Property Income Distribution (“PID”) and will be paid on 14 August 2026 to shareholders on the register on 31 July 2026. The ex-dividend date will be 30 July 2026.

The SNOWBALL was funded by 100k of seed capital and will earn income of at least 11k this year.

If the seed capital was funded by a SIPP at 20% tax relief the yield would be around 13%

If the seed capital was funded by a SIPP at 40% tax relief the yield would be around 15%

The comparator share VWRP would today, using the 4% rule would provide income of £6,765.

The SNOWBALL will continue to use a running yield of around 11% as your snowball may be funded using a SIPP and or an ISA.

Remember with compound interest it takes a few years to make large differences, so if you are building your snowball, that is good news.

I’ve booked a profit of £250 with TRIG. I may use the capital gain to buy a higher yielding more risky share, just waiting on the outcome of the AIRE corporates.

Current profit for the SNOWBALL trades in TRIG, including earned dividends

£1,891.00, remembering that the position is still open so Mr. Market could take back the profit and some more.

By Brett Owens, Contrarian Outlook, Tuesday, July 21

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the Strait of Hormuz is closed once again.

Crude oil jumped 9% Monday on the news, and on cue we have vanilla investors piling into everything and anything with a rig or pipeline attached. It’s an understandable reaction, but we careful contrarians can play this smarter. 

Investing

Still, the energy sector is cheap after months of investor avoidance, and today we’re going to talk about seven names that pay between 4.8% and 13.9%.

These energy payers dish their dividends with or without a geopolitical crisis.

Let’s look at these seven oil names averaging 8.8% yields right now.

Producers like Crescent Energy (CRGY, 4.8% dividend yield) are the most direct plays on oil because barrel prices have a direct impact on their bottom line. Look at any chart of an American oil exploration-and-production firm against West Texas Intermediate crude, and it’ll usually go something like this:

It’s a Pretty Clear Connection

It’s rarely a perfect 1-for-1, of course. Many producers deal in more than one commodity. Efficiency varies from firm to firm. And they sometimes have additional lines of business past traditional E&P.

Take Crescent Energy, for instance. Crescent is a producer of oil, condensate (ultra-light oil) and natural gas. It has operations in the Eagle Ford Shale, as well as the Uinta and Permian basins, but it also owns mineral and royalty interests that are operated by other companies—thus, CRGY gets to enjoy the cash flows from those assets without having to put up capital to work them. 

Finance

Growth comes not by developing new sites, but by acquiring existing operations (such as its blockbuster $3.1 billion deal to buy Vital Energy in a deal that closed late last year) and finding efficiency gains. It’s a slower-growth but more consistent model.

Declines since April have CRGY trading at just 4.4 times 2026 earnings estimates, which is just a third of where the energy sector is trading. The nearly 5% yield is decent, too, though its short payout history could be better. The company was created in the late 2021 combination of Independence Energy and Contango Oil & Gas. It quickly initiated a 12-cent quarterly dividend, raised it to 17 cents for about a year, then brought it back to 12 cents, where it has remained ever since.

Northern Oil & Gas (NOG, 8.9% dividend yield) has been around for longer but has a similarly young dividend program. This firm was founded in 2006 and went public in 2007, and it deals in oil and natural gas across the Williston, Uinta, Permian, Appalachian and Duvernay formations.

While it’s technically an E&P firm, it’s not an operator—it holds interests in thousands of wells, then partners with other E&P operators to work them. It’s a cash-flow-friendly business, though Northern Oil & Gas didn’t share the wealth until relatively recently. The payout kicked off at 3 cents per share quarterly in 2021, then NOG ramped up that figure every three months.

For a Few Years, Anyways

It slowed to semiannually in 2024, and its last hike came at the start of 2025. Still, the 45-cent payout is light-years from where it used to be, and NOG yields a wild 9% as a result. The payout ratio, which sits at just half this year’s earnings and 45% of 2027’s, isn’t problematic, either. It’s not a cash crunch, either—the company recently cut back on capital spending, but it lifted its share buyback program by $150 million.

Shares trade at an extremely cheap forward P/E of 6, though that price also reflects a more conservative business model.

Viper Energy (VNOM, 5.4% dividend yield) is a similar company, formed by Diamondback Energy (FANG) to own and acquire mineral and royalty interests. Viper Energy leases these interests—which primarily involve oil, natural gas or natural gas liquids from the Permian Basin—to E&P companies. Again: light on capital, rich in cash.

Viper’s version of this business model has looked healthier than Northern’s of late, and investors have expressed that with their wallets: VNOM has nearly doubled on a total-return basis over the past three years and is still holding on to a decent chunk of its Q1 stock gains; NOG has lost a third of its value and is in the red year-to-date. 

But Viper isn’t as much of a value, either, trading more cheaply than the market but more richly than the sector. And while the 5% yield is OK, it could change.

VNOM Has a Fairly Variable Dividend

Specifically, the company has a base-plus-variable dividend with a current floor of 38 cents, which it raised 15% this year. On the one hand, recent payouts that came to 85%-90% of cash available for distribution as dividends aren’t the norm; management indicated it would likely go back to its 75% minimum this year. But elevated prices could keep the dividend aloft, too. 

Investing

Another place to look for high yields? Energy infrastructure firms—effectively “toll takers” that take a cut when oil, natural gas and other commodities flow through their pipelines, storage units and other assets.

Hess Midstream LP (HESM, 7.8% distribution yield), for instance, owns midstream energy assets such as pipelines, gas processing facilities, terminals and gathering pipelines.

Hess Midstream is a master limited partnership (MLP), which are harder to value using the traditional P/E metric. Enterprise value to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and exploration (EV/EBITDAX) tends to be a better lens; HESM’s roughly 7x multiple is plenty cheap compared to the 9x-10x valuations of many of its peers.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I highlighted Hess Midstream among stocks with pivotal dividend announcements coming up. I said then:

Historically, HESM has delivered a drumbeat of 1%-3% quarter-over-quarter raises that have amounted to roughly 10% year-over-year growth. But the company recently pared back its full-year capex guidance and raised its free cash flow outlook, which could result in modestly thicker raises in the quarters to come (though it muddies the potential for growth). Whatever it chooses to do, it’s likely to come in late July.

Hess Midstream’s Shares, Distributions Have Grown Hand-in-Hand

Shareholders will be looking for more than extra cash, though. They’ll also be watching for a clearer picture of what Chevron (CVX), which has a roughly 38% stake in HESM following its 2025 acquisition of Hess Corp., plans for HESM. It has been ambiguous so far. There could be upside if CVX plans to invest in the midstream name—less if it continues to simply siphon off cash.

HESM, like many MLPs, has another issue: The dreaded K-1. MLPs are required to issue us a K-1 package at the end of the tax year. These are generally headaches (for us, or for whoever does our taxes).

The headache might be worth it for a much bigger payout, though. Consider Mach Natural Resources LP (MNR, 13.9% distribution yield), which I highlighted right as the U.S. war with Iran was breaking out, and which generated much more upside through oil’s highs than the broader MLP industry.

MNR Has Delivered Better Swings, Held on to More of Its Returns

Mach Natural Resources is an oddball in that it’s an upstream energy MLP (read: E&P, not infrastructure). It operates in the Anadarko Basin, though it also has assets in the Green River, San Juan and Permian basins. 

Finance

Mach is an efficient operator with a good track record of buying assets at low valuations. And it’s not just an oil play—in fact, natural gas represents just more than half its production.

Despite its relative strength so far in 2026, MNR still trades at a dirt-cheap 4.5 EV/EBITDAX, which isn’t much higher than where it traded in late February. The distribution is also sky-high, but it’s not fixed—it’s based on cash available after a 50% reinvestment rate and thus extremely variable.

What if we want big MLP yields but don’t want big MLP tax complexity? Closed-end funds (CEFs) let us have our cake and eat it too.

Kayne Anderson Energy Infrastructure Fund (KYN, 7.5% distribution rate) owns the top names in energy logistics. Buying this fund gets us exposure to corporations such as The Williams Companies (WMB) and Kinder Morgan (KMI), as well as MLPs like Enterprise Products Partners LP (EPD) and Energy Transfer LP (ET).

What we don’t get is a K-1. We receive a neat little Form 1099, just like a regular stock. 

Stocks& Bonds

Unlike similar exchange-traded funds (ETFs), Kayne Anderson can use CEFs’ special sauce—debt leverage—to double down on some of its highest-conviction picks. Its fairly high effective leverage of 25% squeezes more yield out of its holdings (and it pays monthly to boot).

However, that leverage also means KYN will swing harder than a typical infrastructure ETF—for better or worse.

KYN Is Merely OK Over the Long Term, So When We Buy Matters

A reminder: CEFs can also trade at premiums or discounts to their net asset value (NAV), and Kayne Anderson Energy Infrastructure Fund currently trades at a 14% discount, meaning we’re buying its energy infrastructure holdings at 86 cents on the dollar. Not bad—but not as great as it sounds. That’s only a little wider than KYN’s historical 13% discount.

Tortoise Energy Infrastructure (TYG, 13.1% distribution rate) is a less pure play on the space, but one that comes with a massive step-up in yield. Tortoise’s CEF is a roughly 55/45 blend of energy infrastructure and utility companies. It too holds energy corporations and MLPs alike, such as Targa Resources (TRGP) and MPLX LP (MPLX), but also “utes” like Entergy (ETR) and Sempra Energy (SRE).

It’s another quirk of the CEF space. Energy ETFs are rarely structured this way; however, several energy infrastructure CEFs pair the two sectors.

We Get the Ups and Downs of Two Worlds, But the Strategy Has Merit

TYG pays monthly and we get to avoid the K-1.

Tortoise Energy Infrastructure has carried an average 14% discount over the past five years. During 2026’s energy peak, TYG traded at a small premium. It has burned off some of that fat, but at a 9% discount right now, it still hasn’t returned to bargain territory.

This “Dividend Magnet” Gave Us a 28.5% Gain in 3 Weeks. Here Are Its Next 2 Buys

Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: July 21, 2026

Here’s what sets us contrarians apart from the herd: We know that every crazy headline that comes across our phones is great news for us.

We welcome the madness and volatility because it lets us buy dips in our favorite dividend growers! Plus, we have an overlooked edge the crowd is clueless about: Our “Dividend Magnet” system for picking dividends that are soaring—and taking their share prices along for the ride.

I’d go so far as to say a soaring dividend is the biggest driver of share-price growth.

When many investors think of growth, they think of aggressive non-payers like Netflix (NFLX), Shopify (SHOP), Tesla (TSLA) or (heaven forbid!), Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SPCX), the latest media darling. But take a look at this:

A Dividend Magnet “Classic” Skyrockets in the Long Run …

In purple, we’ve got the share-price performance of Texas Instruments (TXN) over the last 10 years. Next to that, we have its stair-stepping dividend (in orange). You can clearly see the payout pacing the stock higher, resulting in a 314% price gain.

Reinvest those payouts and you’re doing even better: a 441% total return over that decade. And that’s from a very well-established stock (TXN traces its roots back to 1930). No shiny growth pony here.

I mention TXN because it gives us a clear snapshot of just how effective this strategy is. When we held the stock in our Hidden Yields dividend-growth service from June 2017 to January 2022, we walked away with a “payout-powered” 148% total return.

TXN has delivered for us in the short run, too. We held it for three weeks (!), from April 16, 2026, to May 7, 2026, in my Dividend Swing Trader service, neatly capturing a chunk of that spike in the chart above. The result? a nearly instant 28.5% return.

… And the Short

Note we’re not holding TXN today because, as we saw in our first chart, its price has rocketed ahead of its payout—and the Dividend Magnet works in reverse, as well, so it can pull down a stock that’s gotten too far ahead of itself.

So we’ve got TXN on our watch list—ready to move back in the next time its stock falls behind its payout. Instead, we’re targeting these two “dividend laggards” from our Hidden Yields portfolio.

“Dividend Magnet” Play No. 1: Home Depot (HD)

Another trend that’s well off the mainstream radar these days? The home-reno boom that’s quietly building across the country.

What’s driving it? Ironically, high mortgage rates, which make homeowners who took out mortgages with rock-bottom rates in 2020 and 2021 loath to move. So many are renovating their current places instead.

Many of these folks have also built up a lot of equity since 2021, and they’re not afraid to tap it to fund their upgrades.

In the first quarter, for example, balances on home-equity lines of credit jumped $14 billion from a year earlier, to $446 billion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Meantime, spending on renos and maintenance is projected to hit a record $522 billion, according to the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies.

The “maintenance” side of that spend is not to be sniffed at, either, considering the typical American home is now 44 years old.

These houses need new roofs. They need new pipes. The HVAC is about to wheeze its last breath. None of these problems care about interest rates, Middle East conflicts or AI. They need to be fixed—stat.

Put it all together and you have a setup for a multi-year reno bonanza. And when rates fall (and they will as the deflationary effect of AI rolls through the economy), we could be looking at Reno Boom 3.0 as some of those bargain-basement mortgage-rate payers take the plunge and relocate.

Home Depot (HD) is here for all of this. As I write, HD is more than 22% below all-time highs. That’s absurd for a company generating $14 billion in yearly free cash flow.

Management, meanwhile, is returning as much of that cash as possible: In the last decade, HD has bought back 19% of its outstanding shares and hiked its payout 238%. That charged up HD’s “Dividend Magnet,” as you can see below.

HD’s “Dividend Magnet” Is Due

You can also see that the orange line (the share price) has split from the purple staircase since about last fall. That’s our upside: When that gap closes, we collect the difference.

Meantime, HD is catching more of what contractors spend through its Pro Desk, which, thanks to a couple recent acquisitions, makes it a top-to-bottom supplier for contractors.

Five years ago, a contractor who’d just landed a big job would’ve called three or four suppliers to get what they needed. Now they can wander up to the local Home Depot’s Pro Desk (or order online) and everything arrives from one source, on one truck.

The best part is, contractors need these materials whether the housing market is booming or busting, especially as American homes age. That makes HD’s revenue “sticky.” It sets us up for more payout hikes—and dividend-powered gains—too.

“Dividend Magnet” Play No. 2: Visa (V)

Our second stock runs the “plumbing” of the global payment system, processing 66.1 billion transactions in the second quarter alone. That’s Visa (V), which is often overlooked because of its “low” 0.8% yield. But that hides the power of “Big V’s” Dividend Magnet, which has made buying every dip in the last decade pay off:

Visa’s Dividend Magnet Makes Every Dip a Winner

As you can see, “Big V’s” dividend isn’t just growing—it’s accelerating. And if you look closely, you can see that every dip in the last decade has been a buying opportunity.

Which brings us to now, with the stock trailing the dividend but moving closer over the last few weeks. That setup—a stock that’s lagging but gaining momentum—is a sweet buying opportunity for us.

That’s especially true when you consider that despite the gloomy headlines (which are, again, a plus for us!), consumer spending is holding up, and the labor market is stable. That helped drive a 9% gain in payment volume across Visa’s network in Q2.

A further tailwind? AI. It’s not just making Visa more efficient—it’s changing shopping habits as more consumers use it to quickly find what they want. Sellers are also boosting sales through hyper-focused ad targeting. This all points to more traffic—and transaction fees—for Visa.

The bottom line? Both Visa and Home Depot are strong, undervalued businesses whose Dividend Magnets are putting upward pressure on their lagging share prices. That makes now a great time to buy—before these stocks “snap back” to their payouts.

How to Put the Dividend Magnet to Work Right Now

Here’s something else you should know about the Dividend Magnet system: It is, as they say, “simple but not easy.”

That is, the pattern looks simple to spot: rising dividend, rising share price.

But we need to go further and be sure our dividend growers have the cash flow to keep growing—and ideally accelerating—them in the future.

I intend to add some high yielders to the Watch List quoted in u$.

We will start the research using Brokers buys. There will be some clunkers in the list so DYOR but GL.

QD INSIGHTS & OPINION

Matthew Read on AIRE: “While Glenstone’s opposition and significant shareholding in AIRE makes it harder for AEWU to complete a deal, this does not make Glenstone’s offer attractive. As AIRE’s board point out, once the expected fourth interim dividend is taken into account, the effective value falls to 70p, which is a sizeable discount to NAV and offering little premium for control. At this stage, we think AIRE shareholders should sit tight and see whether AEWU converts its interest into a firm offer. Its proposed all-share terms currently imply a meaningfully higher value and would allow investors to retain exposure to a liquid, income-producing REIT with a strong track record. Of course, there is no guarantee that an offer will emerge, but shareholders lose little by waiting for greater clarity and we’re inclined to agree with AIRE’s board that Glenstone’s bid is coming at too wide a discount.”

Could this REIT turn £10,000 into a £780 second income under Andy Burnham?

As Andy Burnham enters No 10, Stephen Wright looks at a stock that could benefit from a Prime Minister focused on devolution outside the M25.

Posted by Stephen Wright

Published 20 July

RGL

You’re reading a free article with opinions that may differ from The Twelfth Magpie’s Premium Investing Services.

A second income from regional offices might be the most topical investment idea in Britain right now. Andy Burnham walks into Downing Street and the North of England is making the headlines.

If power really is heading out of London, one small-cap real estate investment trust (REIT) might be positioned directly in its path. It’s Regional REIT (LSE:RGL).

Should you buy Regional REIT shares today?

The portfolio

The company owns a £543m portfolio of offices deliberately located outside the M25. Its properties are located in places like Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds, and Birmingham.

The strategy is unorthodox – most property investors hunt for areas and industries where demand is strong. Regional REIT focuses on opportunities where supply is weak. 

Industrial distribution centres are popular, but the problem is that everyone and their dog seems to be building them. By contrast, almost no new office space is being developed in some regional cities.

That makes quality assets highly valuable, even with modest demand. And there’s a chance a Burnham premiership could make that side of the equation even more favourable.

The UK now has a Prime Minister focused on devolution. If that shifts jobs and departments into regional cities, growing demand could be met with constrained supply.

I’m not saying it’s on the same scale as artificial intelligence (AI) driving memory prices off the charts. But the principle is the same and that could be powerful for rent prices.

The maths

Regional REIT targets an 8p per share dividend for 2026. At today’s 102p, that’s a 7.8% yield.

Investment	Annual second income at 7.8%
£5,000	£390
£10,000	£780
£20,000	£1,560

With an investment like this, investors need to think strategically. A £500 dividend allowance disappears quickly with high yields.

A higher-rate taxpayer loses 33.75% of anything over the first £500. Over time, that can be a lot – especially if the dividend goes up. 

Inside a Stocks and Shares ISA, the investor keeps the full £780. And with something like Regional REIT, that matters more than it does for most stocks.

REITs have to distribute 90% of their taxable income. This doesn’t leave much for reinvestment, so the dividend is usually the bulk of the returns.

That means avoiding dividend tax is key – there’s not much coming from elsewhere, so retaining as much as possible is crucial.

Please note that tax treatment depends on the individual circumstances of each client and may be subject to change in future. The content in this article is provided for information purposes only. It is not intended to be, neither does it constitute, any form of tax advice. Readers are responsible for carrying out their own due diligence and for obtaining professional advice before making any investment decisions.

The risk

In terms of risks, it’s best to focus on the dividend. The board has already reset it once — from a 10p target to 8p this year.

That was to fund refurbishments. And while those are investments in the business, a decade of quarterly payouts shows income is a priority but not a promise. 

There are some reassuring details. Net loan-to-value is down to 39.4%, rent collection reached 98.5% in Q1, and £40.3m of cash sits on the balance sheet. 

That’s all very positive. But if occupancy slips while hybrid working lingers, another cut is possible.

Investing, however, isn’t about finding risk-free opportunities. It’s about weighing the risk against a 7.8% starting yield that might get a boost in the near future.

Buying shares in Regional REIT as part of a diversified portfolio keeps a dividend disappointment from derailing the whole plan. And I think it’s certainly worth considering right now.

If you buy at 99p and the dividend is 8p, the yield equals 8%

Next dividend payment October.

Currently trades at a discount to NAV of 50%, so you are buying assets for 50p in the pound so there could be an opportunity, long term, to make a capital gain.