Welltower (WELL) Q2 2026: Normalized FFO/Share Up 25%, GAAP Guidance Cut

Welltower's senior housing engine is compounding organically, not just buying growth: same-store NOI rose 15.5% year over year, and the Seniors Housing Operating (SHO) portfolio delivered 20.5% same-store NOI growth on 330 basis points of occupancy gains and 5.2% higher revenue per occupied room. That matters because the bear case on this stock has always been dilution — diluted share count is up 8.7% year over year, and 46% between 2022 and 2025 — yet normalized FFO per diluted share still climbed 25.0% to $1.60. The complication is that management raised full-year normalized FFO guidance while cutting GAAP net income guidance, and the gap between the two numbers is now wide enough to be the main thing an investor should interrogate. Underneath sits a REIT deliberately trading a $7.2 billion outpatient medical portfolio for seniors housing and mortgage paper, at 2.99x net debt to adjusted EBITDA.