Final answer:
Deceptive acts in real estate transactions gravely affect consumers by influencing significant financial decisions, leading to potential financial loss, and contributing to discriminatory practices like steering and mortgage discrimination. These acts have long-term consequences that can massively impact consumers' lives.
Step-by-step explanation:
Deceptive acts in real estate transactions have a significant impact on consumers due to the substantial financial investment and the potential long-term consequences involved. Real estate fraud or deceptive practices can include misleading advertisements that fail to disclose negative aspects of a property, such as a landfill next door or a factory across the street, which could deter potential buyers if known. This can lead consumers to make uninformed decisions that result in substantial financial loss or dissatisfaction.
Fraudulent activities in real estate, such as the hard-sell techniques and easy credit schemes documented in the period before the Great Depression, can induce consumers to make hasty and unwise investments. The consequences of such deceptive practices were evident when the land bubble burst, leaving many with worthless investments.
In addition to fraudulent advertising, there are practices like steering, where realtors may guide prospective buyers towards or away from certain neighborhoods based on ethnicity, which can be either discriminatory or a misguided attempt to find a 'good fit.' This, along with mortgage discrimination and less obvious forms of real estate discrimination, poses significant and sometimes insidious risks to consumers.