I don't think we signed more than some 3-4 papers when buying a house and taking up mortage on it here in Norway. It's the contract between the seller and buyer, the official ownership transferal document (to be signed by the seller and two witnesses, not by the buyer), we had to sign some papers to become customers of the bank giving us the loan, we had to sign the loan agreement contract with the bank, and then the official mortage paper confirming that the bank would own our property if we mishold the loan agreement. Not that bad, and house ownership through mortages are heavily subsidized in this country, so it has been a very good deal for us. We rent out part of the house, the house rent income is bigger than the interests we pay on the loan, we don't pay taxes on the rent income, and we get a tax break on the interests we pay.
The whole process can indeed be done without any physical signatures at all, by using a government-sanctioned de-facto national e-signature system fully owned and controlled by one commercial entity ("BankID"), and with any bank in this country having the power to order such BankIDs on the behalf of their customers. I find it extremely scary.