Have £1,000 to invest? These 2 FTSE 250 dividend stocks could help you to retire early

Scouring the FTSE 250 (INDEXFTSE: MCX) for hot investment ideas? You could do worse than give these dividend stocks a close look.

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In a recent article I looked at two FTSE 100 income shares that could help you to hang up your work gloves sooner rather than later. There’s plenty of brilliant dividend bets to be found in the FTSE 250 too, of course. I reckon the following ones are a couple of the best.

Yields above 9%? Yes please!

It’s quite easy to have a positive view of Bovis Homes Group (LSE: BVS) when it continues to pepper the market with bubbly trading updates.

The firm was at it again last month, advising that the completions it clocked up during January-June rose 4% year-on-year to 1,580. Bovis celebrated the fact that “the housing market fundamentals remain robust” although it is taking nothing for granted. It is a wise strategy given the worrying outlook for the UK economy, and  it is stepping up build rates in the fast-growing affordable housing segment.

City analysts are expecting the homebuilder to recover from last year’s annus horribilis, when it was forced to pull back production rates in response to evidence of shoddy workmanship, and expect it to record earnings explosions of 39% in 2018 and 15% in 2019.

And with special dividends on the cards, the number crunchers are anticipating total payouts of 101.8p per share this year and 103p the following year, projections that yield a titanic 9% and 9.1% respectively.

If this wasn’t enough, Bovis carries a dirt-cheap earnings multiple of 11.9 times too.

Plenty of pop

Britvic (LSE: BVIC) is another excellent FTSE 250 income share that can be picked up on a forward P/E ratio inside the widely-regarded value territory of 15 times or below — it sports a reading of 14.7 times for the year to October 2018.

City brokers are expecting profits growth to be a lot less spectacular than that over at Bovis, however, and rises of 3% and 6% are predicted for fiscal 2018 and 2019 respectively. Still, this should be enough to keep dividends rising at quite a pace. Last year’s 26.5p per share reward is anticipated to move to 27.4p in the present period and to 28.8p in fiscal 2019.

Sure, consequent yields of 3.4% and 3.6% may be healthy rather than heart-stopping. But there’s plenty of reason to expect both profits and dividends to continue on their merry march for a long time to come.

The evergreen popularity of still brands like Robinsons remains intact (sales of such labels in the UK boomed 11.9% in the last fiscal quarter). And the steps Britvic has taken to shake up its drinks portfolio in the face of the sugar tax has been incredibly impressive too.

With its expansion across the Atlantic also paying off handsomely — sales in Brazil and the US boomed 10.2% and 8.7% respectively in the last quarter — Britvic is a share I reckon could provide a handsome second income stream for years to come.

Royston Wild has no position in any of the shares mentioned. The Motley Fool UK owns shares of and has recommended Britvic. Views expressed on the companies mentioned in this article are those of the writer and therefore may differ from the official recommendations we make in our subscription services such as Share Advisor, Hidden Winners and Pro. Here at The Motley Fool we believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors.

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