Hundreds of luxury properties in Portugal are set to go on sale on Wednesday on Chinese e-commerce portal Taobao, Chinese state-run newspaper China Daily reported on Tuesday.

The aim, the report said, is to meet the growing demand from wealthy Chinese people interested in investing in overseas real estate markets.

Taobao is owned by the Chinese conglomerate Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

The 1,500 villas and flats set to be auctioned online on Paimai – Taobao’s auction site – have a combined market value of 1.6 billion yuan (US$257.6 million) and are located in Portugal’s southern region Algarve, according to China Daily.

Prices of the individual properties range from 900,000 euros (US$975,510) to 1.5 million euros, the newspaper said. It added that they range in size from 231 square metres to 363 square metres.

Paimai’s General Manager, Lu Weixing, said – as quoted by China Daily – “overseas realty is a sector that will catch the fancy of online bidders”.

Mr Lu acknowledged online auctions are still an emerging sector in China, but he said the nation was moving very fast to overtake the United States as the world’s largest online auction market this year.

According to Mr Lu, “the total transaction value of China’s online auction sector was less than 100 million yuan in 2012”. This year, he added, the sector is expected to surpass 100 billion yuan.

Portugal has a ‘Visa Gold’ programme – which initially grants Portuguese residency to foreigners that invest at least 500,000 euros in the country’s real estate market. Under the scheme, there is the possibility of later converting residency to citizenship.

Data from Portugal’s Embassy in China showed – as quoted by China Daily – that, under the programme, a total of 2,420 residency permits were granted to foreign investors from October 2012 to June 2015. Of these, 1,947 were offered to Chinese investors.