The trick seems to be to have a shell company that owns the property and then buy and sell the company rather than the property - the Panama Papers are full of these kinds of shenanigans.

... or buy and sell options on that stock, so no actual change in ownership at all, (company or property) but rather just an exchange of contracts and obligations with a somewhat remote (and hard-to-prove) relationship with anything even remotely taxable.

Here's an example of that kind of shell company trickery:

http://www.andywightman.com/archives/4492

Yes, and I believe this avoids a large tax as well. Our politicians have completely failed us, but so many people are getting so rich they don't care.