Crown Castle is a good dividend growth investment

Crown Castle (CCI)

CCI is a buy-and-hold long-term REIT holding in my traditional IRA. When buying REITS, it is good to use REITNOTES for determining the payout ratio. Fidelity Investments does not present the proper dividend payout ratio. You have to use “Funds from Operations” (FFO) as the metric to get the true payout ratio. The reason I like CCI is simple: you and I and millions of people use their services. They own cell towers and fiber networks. Every time you use your smartphone you are sending me some wonderful dividends. Thank you!

About CCI

Crown Castle owns, operates and leases more than 40,000 cell towers and approximately 80,000 route miles of fiber supporting small cells and fiber solutions across every major U.S. market. This nationwide portfolio of communications infrastructure connects cities and communities to essential data, technology, and wireless service – bringing information, ideas and innovations to the people and businesses that need them.

Seeking Alpha Email Updates

Yesterday I received two interesting emails from Seeking Alpha. Because I have CCI set up in my SA portfolio, I receive emails for key activity for each position. I want to see earnings release updates and anything new related to dividends. These images tell the story grabbed from two email messages.

Seeking Alpha CCI beats AFFO expectations and raises dividend
Increasing dividend means more income and no additional work required.

REITNOTES Exploration

The other essential tool  I use is REITNOTES. This free web site is a treasure trove for REIT investors. It is the best REIT-focused site I have found to date. The following images help you see what I look for when I evaluate a REIT. I always want to see a REIT score of at least 7.0 and I prefer REITs with a score of 10.0 for the AFFO/FFO factor.

The score needs to be at least 7.0 in my buy decisions.
The dividends and price growth are both present.
If AFFO is above 100% there is more risk.
CCI’s dividend increase percent is fantastic.
Some crucial scores for CCI meet my criteria. The 7.9 score is the result of all of these indicators.

Full Disclosure

I owned 135 shares of CCI in my traditional IRA this morning before the market opened. Therefore, my projected annual income from dividends is $718.20 based on the dividend increase. This is an increase from $648 per year. My shares are up 19% since I bought them. I will continue to buy on the dips. In fact, this morning I bought another 15 shares for a total of 150. Now my projected annual income is $798, or enough to eat out at least two times every month at Benvenuto’s restaurant in Fitchburg.

CCI REITNOTES LINK: REITNOTES