When many investors look at W.P. Carey (NYSE: WPC), what they see is a company that has let them down. That's understandable, given that the real estate investment trust (REIT) cut its dividend just one year shy of hitting 25 years, a key landmark year for many dividend-focused investors.

But while Wall Street waits for W.P. Carey to prove that it hasn't lost its way (it almost certainly hasn't), investors can collect an outsized 5.8% dividend yield. Here's why W.P. Carey could be the ultimate high-yield stock to buy today if you have $1,000, or more, to put to work.

How attractive is W.P. Carey's yield?

On an absolute basis, 5.8% is a fairly high dividend yield. But it gets even more attractive when you make some comparisons. For example, the S&P 500 index is only yielding around 1.2% today. The average financial stock is yielding 1.5%, using the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF as an industry proxy. The average REIT is yielding 3.7%, using the Vanguard Real Estate Index ETF (NYSEMKT: VNQ) as a proxy. Compared to those figures, W.P. Carey's dividend yield looks downright huge.

It is even larger than Realty Income's (NYSE: O) 5.1% dividend yield. Realty Income is relevant on two fronts. First, it is the largest net lease REIT ahead of No. 2 W.P. Carey. Second, the portfolios of these two net lease REITs share important similarities, notably geographic exposure to Europe and diversification across retail, warehouse, and industrial assets. But there's a big difference, too -- Realty Income exited the office space without cutting its dividend.

To be fair, W.P. Carey's office segment made up a fairly large 16% of rents prior to the decision to exit the troubled sector. Too much of the company's revenue was tied to office for a rip-the-bandage-off approach to happen without a dividend reset. So the cut wasn't a decision that management made lightly. It was trying to set itself up for a brighter future.

Back on the bandwagon at W.P. Carey

Still, it is understandable that investors are disappointed. The discount relative to other REITs is the real-world implication of Wall Street taking a wait-and-see attitude with W.P. Carey. Only, in an important way, the REIT hasn't really skipped a beat. That's because in the quarter after the cut, it raised the dividend. The quarter after that, it raised the dividend again -- and again the quarter after that. Three quarters in a row? That's a trend. W.P. Carey has gone right back into the quarterly increase cadence that existed prior to the dividend reset.