The Aging Boomer Landlords: 5 Senior Housing REITs and What Their Yields Are Telling You

Senior housing landlords are now collecting on the largest age wave in U.S. history. On the company’s July 30, 2026 earnings call, Ventas (NYSE:VTR) CEO Debra A. Cafaro said: “The leading edge of the nearly 70 million baby boomers has just begun turning 80 this year, ushering in a decade where the growth rate of the senior population more than doubles.” She also laid out the supply gap in one line: “There were a little over 1,000 starts this quarter, and 2 million people are turning 80 just in 2026.”

All five REITs below are equity REITs. They own buildings and collect rent or operating income. That sets them apart from mortgage REITs, which hold property loans and carry interest rate and credit risk that landlords avoid. (Some of these REITs do make loans to operators, and we flag that below.) Their yields split them into two groups. Welltower (NYSE:WELL) and Ventas are large owners of private-pay senior housing, and the market prices them for growth. CareTrust REIT (NYSE:CTRE), Sabra Health Care REIT (NASDAQ:SBRA), and LTC Properties (NYSE:LTC) pay more because more of their income comes from skilled nursing operators, who depend on Medicare and Medicaid. Every dividend-safety read below uses funds from operations (FFO) or adjusted FFO/funds available for distribution (FAD). Those REIT cash-flow measures add back depreciation, which makes a GAAP earnings payout ratio misleading for property owners.

Welltower: A Fresh Dividend Hike With Half the Cash Flow Left Over

What it owns: Welltower is the biggest name in the group, with a market cap of about $170.8 billion. It owns operating and triple-net senior housing, outpatient medical buildings, and long-term/post-acute care properties. Its senior housing operating portfolio (SHOP) produced about 70% of total NOI in the second quarter. The company expanded into Canada by acquiring Amica Senior Lifestyles, which added 38 communities worth C$4.1 billion on a pro rata basis. That deal closed on April 1, 2026.

Demand background: SHOP same-store NOI grew 20.5% in Q2. Same-store occupancy rose to 89.4% from 86.1%, and revenue per occupied room (RevPOR) increased 5.2%. Management called it the 15th consecutive quarter of NOI growth above 20%.

Yield and coverage: The stock yields 1.31%. Welltower raised its quarterly dividend 15% to $0.85, which was its 221st consecutive quarterly dividend. Against full-year Normalized FFO guidance of $6.36 to $6.44 per share, the $3.40 annualized payout uses about 53% of FFO. Leverage is also light, with net debt to adjusted EBITDA at 2.99x.

Bull case: Welltower’s customers have the money to keep paying higher rents. CEO Shankh S. Mitra put it this way on the call: “We serve the wealthiest age cohorts in history, with a significant concentration of wealth held by the baby boomer generation.” The company has completed or signed about $15.5 billion of investments so far this year. Investors have already priced in much of that growth: shares are up 29.25% year to date.

Risk: In a SHOP structure, Welltower bears operating costs directly, so the health of the operator workforce matters. Mitra said long-term labor availability remains a concern because the labor force is shrinking and there are fewer family caregivers. If wage inflation outpaces RevPOR, the margin story starts to unwind.

Ventas: Payout Growth Backed by an Occupancy Runway

What it owns: Ventas, with a market cap of about $44.4 billion, reports three segments: SHOP, Outpatient Medical and Research, and Triple-Net Leased Properties. Management expects SHOP to make up 60% of a $60 billion enterprise by year-end.

Demand background: SHOP same-store cash NOI grew 16.3% in Q2, and U.S. SHOP grew 18%. U.S. same-store occupancy rose 360 basis points, and RevPOR increased 5%. U.S. senior housing occupancy remains at only 87%, leaving room for further gains.

Yield and coverage: The stock yields 2.34%. The quarterly dividend is $0.52, up from $0.48 through 2025, for an annualized $2.08. Full-year Normalized FFO guidance rose to $3.85-$3.90 per share, so the payout uses about 54% of FFO at the center. Net debt to adjusted EBITDA improved to 4.7x from 5.6x. Retirees should know the history, though. Ventas cut its quarterly payout from $0.7925 to $0.45 in 2020, and the current dividend is still below that pre-pandemic level.

Bull case: Fuller buildings earn significantly more. Justin Hutchens, who runs the senior housing business, said: “The communities currently 90% or more occupied delivered 25% NOI growth.” Ventas raised its 2026 investment target to $4.5 billion, with an average expected year-one yield of 6.6%.

Risk: Much of the growth depends on operator turnarounds. Non-same-store assets, a large share of them former Brookdale communities now moving to new operators, account for about 25% of SHOP NOI. Ventas is also funding growth with equity: it has raised $4.2 billion, and $1.6 billion of that is still pending. If the turnarounds stall, those new shares dilute existing holders.

CareTrust REIT: Skilled Nursing Income With Low Leverage

What it owns: CareTrust’s portfolio leans toward triple-net skilled nursing. It also has a growing book of senior housing leases, a small SHOP segment, and U.K. care homes acquired through Care REIT plc, which make up about 18% of annualized rent. The portfolio includes 628 properties and 58,775 beds/units. Its loans, which add credit exposure, go almost entirely to skilled nursing operators and usually come attached to purchase options on the real estate.

Operator health: Because CareTrust collects rent from operators, the key measure is EBITDARM coverage: operator earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, rent, and management fees, divided by rent. It was at 3.21x for skilled nursing and 2.16x for senior housing. CareTrust collected 100% of contractual rent and interest. Stabilized portfolio occupancy was 83.9%.

Yield and coverage: The stock yields 4.07% on a $0.39 quarterly dividend. The company puts its payout at about 76% of Normalized FAD, and full-year FAD guidance is $2.01 to $2.04 per share. Net debt to normalized run-rate EBITDA is just 1.0x, and the company has no scheduled debt maturities before 2028.

Bull case: CareTrust is growing FFO per share faster than anyone else in this group. Normalized FFO guidance of $2.03 to $2.06 means 16.2% growth over 2025 at the center. It closed $899.6 million in Q2 investments at a combined stabilized yield of 8.9%. Chief Investment Officer James Callister explained the math behind favoring skilled nursing: stabilized SHOP assets trade at “mid- to low-5 cap,” while “SNF and other opportunities” offer yields in the “high-8s or 9s.”

Risk: Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, along with federal staffing rules such as the CMS minimum staffing requirement, ultimately decide whether operators can pay rent. CEO David Sedgwick called the environment “stable from a regulatory and reimbursement standpoint,” but CareTrust still recorded a $4.67 million provision for loan losses in Q2.

Sabra Health Care REIT: An Ultra-High Yield With a Write-Down in the Numbers

What it owns: Sabra owns skilled nursing and transitional care facilities, leased and managed senior housing, behavioral health hospitals, and specialty hospitals. CEO Rick Matros said the company will soon be “roughly 95% senior housing and skilled nursing.”

Demand background: Same-store managed senior housing cash NOI grew 13.7%. Managed portfolio occupancy rose to 85.4% from 82.8%, and margin extended to 31.2% from 27.3%. Skilled nursing EBITDARM coverage reached 2.49x.

Yield and coverage: At 6.18%, Sabra is the only ultra-high-yield name here, so check coverage first. The quarterly dividend of $0.30 was 75% of Q2 Normalized AFFO. Full-year Normalized AFFO guidance is $1.59 to $1.61 per share, and Normalized FFO guidance of $1.53 to $1.55 means about a 78% FFO payout. GAAP results show why earnings payout ratios mislead for REITs. Sabra posted a GAAP loss of $0.10 per share, mostly because of a non-cash $102.4 million loan-loss provision, while Normalized FFO came in at $0.38. The dividend has held at $0.30 since Sabra cut it from $0.45 in 2020.

Bull case: The combined SHOP portfolio grew from 73 to 94 properties over the past year. Year-to-date investments total about $599 million at a 7.5% initial cash yield. The Avamere rent reset lifted annualized fixed cash rent to $48 million from $41 million. On reimbursement, the final Medicare market basket came in at 2.4%, and management expects Medicaid rates to rise about 2%.

Risk: Operator credit is the main risk. The $102.4 million reserve shows how fast a struggling tenant or borrower can hit results. With 51.1% of its debt at variable rates, Sabra also has less room to bear that kind of hit if borrowing costs rise.

LTC Properties: A Monthly Payer Moving Out of Skilled Nursing

What it owns: LTC, the smallest REIT here with a market cap of about $2.3 billion, is moving quickly from triple-net skilled nursing into SHOP. It now has 39 SHOP communities run by 12 operators. Management expects SHOP to reach about 50% of NOI by year-end and 75% by the end of 2028. Skilled nursing, which made up more than 50% of NOI in 2024, is expected to fall to the low-20s range.

Demand background: The core 27-property SHOP portfolio averaged 90.0% occupancy with a 26.9% NOI margin and produced $13.3 million of NOI.

Yield and coverage: LTC is a high-yield name at 5.43%. It pays $0.19 monthly, or $2.28 a year, and that rate has not changed since 2020. Against Core FFO guidance of $2.76 to $2.78, the payout is about 82%. Against Core FAD of $2.83 to $2.85, it is about 80%. The dividend is covered, but LTC has the smallest buffer in the group. Co-CEO Pam Kessler described this year’s growth this way: “This has been a heavy lift transformation year, turning over the portfolio as we did, and the 1.5% growth this year is the price we paid for that investment.”

Bull case: LTC raised its SHOP investment guidance by 50% to $900 million, and it expects $730 million from asset sales and loan repayments to help fund the shift. Debt to annualized adjusted EBITDA is 4.2x. The market has rewarded the change: shares are up 32.75% year to date.

Risk: LTC now depends on how well its operators run the buildings. Core portfolio occupancy is about 90 basis points behind internal projections. Standalone memory care, which accounts for roughly 30% to 32% of core units, can swing from quarter to quarter.

Yields Rise as the Cushion Shrinks

Welltower and Ventas pay out roughly half of their FFO and raised their dividends within the past year. Sabra and LTC pay out 75% to 82% of cash flow, and neither has raised its dividend since 2020. CareTrust falls between the two groups, combining a sub-80% FAD payout with the lowest leverage on the list. Across these five, the extra yield is what the market pays investors to take on skilled nursing operator and reimbursement risk, so check FFO and FAD coverage before the yield (we wrote up the seven warning signs that a big yield is about to be cut in a free report here: Dividend Traps).

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