More than 1,000 luxury villas and apartments in Portugal are about to come under the virtual hammer on Taobao, a customer-to-customer site owned China's e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, as the country is gearing up to become the world's largest online auction market this year.

Paimai, the auction site run by Taobao, is expected to launch an online auction on Wednesday for as many as 1,500 high-end villas and apartments in southeastern Portugal, to meet the growing demand from wealthy Chinese individuals for overseas realty investment.

The villas and apartments, with a combined market value of 1.6 billion yuan ($257.6 million), are located in the Algarve, known as one of the finest golf resorts in Portugal. The individual properties that will be auctioned online are valued between 900,000 euros ($975,510) and 1.5 million euros, each with sizes ranging from 231 square meters to 363 sq m.