In the case of vacant South Florida condos, sure, the LLC pays a small tax. Sure, they pay some insurance, but most of that if managed properly is absolved by the HOA (idea is that the building HOA if managed well basically mitigate a lot of longterm risk of property damage - this is the case in my building), they won't need electric or gas hooked up past what came with the unit when it was finished....most of the time the floor isn't even finished in these units.

They can offset this, as did my previous landlord who was based in China and had 5 units in the building. However, a small 10k to a family worth millions is nothing especially if it means they can escape a despotic regime at any point, and have somewhere to go, and if they need money, they can liquidate a condo VERY quickly.