A historic house for auction on America's LiveAuctioneer.com. (Photo/Guangzhou Daily)

Experts have called for better regulations and protection of China's historic houses following news of auctions on the international market, the Guangzhou Daily reported Wednesday.

An historic house in China, ready for auction on America's LiveAuctioneer.com on April 18, was quietly removed from the Internet for reasons unknown.

The building, covering about 9,000 square feet, is located in Ganzhou, East China's Jiangxi province, and had a starting price of $2.98 million, although it was valued at between $6.98-9.60 million.

Tang Taihua, a historic house enthusiast since 2012, launched an online campaign to protect the building from being auctioned before the website withdrew the bidding.

Tang said most old buildings being sold are in Shanxi and Jiangxi provinces. He said he visited about 700 old buildings in Shanxi, which is home to more than 28,000 buildings from the Tang to Qing dynasties.

Tang and his supporters have been calling for historic architecture to be returned to its original location rather than being relocated.

The effort has also been welcomed by He Shuzhong, director of the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center.

He said the best way to protect old buildings is not to demolish or move them, but to get local residents involved in the protection so that they also benefit from it.

He also said it's difficult to confirm if the auction of the Ganzhou building is legal, as its ownership remains unclear.

Liang Guocheng, former curator of the Foshan Municipal Museum, said China has not applied standard regulations to these historic buildings, and private sales may lead to their loss in the future.

"This is a problem we encounter during cultural reconstruction and cultural industry development. I hope our country can further standardize regulations on the sale of historic houses," said Liang.