"For real estate, with long-life fixed assets, there is — literally — a real possibility a building might one day be underwater because of climate change," MSCI Research Executive Director Bryan Reid said.

Regarding the effect of the economic shift, Chase Jansen expects to see a shift to value for money where the economic downturn may lead to consumers demanding value of money across all retail sectors.

Even as tenants begin moving into vacant spaces from lease pre-commitments signed in years prior, future absorption, leasing activity and expansions may be muted until a vaccine for COVID-19 is found.

But CBRE does expect them to fall by 10% to 16% by the first quarter of 2021 before beginning to recover.