Eighteen months later, she has not one but three properties about to hit the market in southwest London and, if she achieves the prices she hopes for, will be well on the way to her target of £1m.
So how on earth did all this start? About six years ago, Grobien sold her company, and began working for a prison education scheme in Wandsworth, teaching inmates how to set up and run their own businesses post-release. She followed that by working for four years, both paid and as a volunteer, with local charities, which she plans to help with her scheme.
They initially include Small Steps School for Parents, a support group for children with cerebral palsy and other conditions that preclude attendance at mainstream pre-schools; Whizz-Kidz, which provides mobility equipment; the Shooting Star Children’s Hospice; and Fairbridge and Skilltrain, which support teenagers facing exclusion from school and unemployment.
“The charities I’m supporting don’t get government funding, they have to do it all themselves,” she says.
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Grobien’s idea of raising money through property development was inspired by her success in renovating her own home in Putney.
“I had found a great team of people who worked around us for six months and did a fantastic job, and I liked the idea of doing it all again with the same team,” she says. “I got talking to a local estate agent about houses to buy, and he recommended I went to look at a dilapidated house around the corner from where I live.
“Next thing I know, I’ve gone from dipping my toe in the water to buying the house and plot, applying for a demolition order and knocking down the old building, dealing with planning permission and finally putting up two beautifully designed, semi-detached homes.”
The Akehurst Street plot had a grotty 1960s wooden-clad detached house with a 100ft garden, and planning approval for two new family homes. It was owned by a property developer who preferred to organise build packages rather than see projects through to completion.
Grobien had researched the market and saw a need in the area for high specification, comfortable family homes. Using a mixture of her own money and bank finance, she bought the plot for £795,000 and set up a company, Give it Away, to develop the site.
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After recouping her initial investment and paying off the loan, Grobien intends to give away the resulting profit to local charities — which means it will not be liable to capital-gains tax.
She has not drawn a salary, even though she has been working six days a week project-managing the builds with the help of Laurence Goodman, of construction firm Sage Consulting, who has joined Give it Away as project director, and Kris Digby, the builder who had worked on her own home, who has become contract director.
The team has come up with two 2,600sq ft mirror-image houses, each still with sizeable gardens. They have four bedrooms, four bathrooms and large, open-plan reception spaces. The kitchens have Neff appliances and granite worktops; the bathrooms have Villeroy & Boch and Aqualisa fittings.
They are both for sale for £1.15m, and Grobien is hoping to make a profit of about £150,000 on each. The potential margin has been helped by the generosity of firms involved, many of whom gave substantial discounts.
Even Barnard Marcus, the estate agency handling the sales, has entered into the spirit of the project and agreed to work for less than its standard commission.
A third house, with three bedrooms, built in the garden of another property in Dryburgh Road, five minutes’ drive away from the first project, is due to be completed towards the end of next month.
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“I know I’ll have to take a break eventually,” says Grobien. “But I set myself a target of making £1m for charity, and I’m not the sort of person who can stop before I reach my goal.”