I grew up in a small house and shared a room with my mother… now I’ve made millions
MANDY St John Davey has made millions despite starting out in a cramped home with seven others.
The property developer has suffered setbacks throughout her life, including cancer, chronic fatigue disease and the death of her father when she was just four.
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Now 63 years old, she is one of the richest women in the country and has been awarded an MBE for her services to working women.
Davey grew up in the Welsh town of Aberdare, in the poorest house on her street: a small terraced house with an outside toilet.
She shared a room with her mother, whom she described as an extremely strong woman.
She said: “That house sometimes felt like it was bursting at the seams. My grandmother was more like my mother and my grandfather was more like my father. My mom worked multiple jobs and tried to bring in as much as she could, so I don’t do it. I don’t remember her being there that often.”
But at the age of 19, Davey bought her first house with £8,000 in inheritance money.
In her twenties she had other jobs, including in IT.
But Davey only had the epiphany that she was becoming a property developer when she sold her house after developing the fatigue condition.
Myalgic encephalomyelitis, or ME, left her unable to move and too tired even to lift her head from the pillow or brush her teeth.
Davey didn’t work for two years while she tried to get her life back, but after returning to work, the fatigue returned.
She sold her house to get rid of her big mortgage – and then she had the epiphany about buy-to-let mortgages.
“So I did a few courses and rather than sell this house I decided to take all the equity out of it and reinvest it in as many properties as possible in and around Cardiff, with dirty, smelly properties that needed some care, of which I would rent.”
Davey began buying houses based on the plans and then selling them when they were 60 percent finished. Within five years she had a portfolio worth millions, she said.
Within ten years she had built up enough wealth to retire, which she partially did, but she was bored and said she still had fuel in the tank to keep working.
So she went back to work and continued to build her property empire and was involved with Women in Property and a mentor in the Prince’s Trust.
But then she was hit with another curve ball in 2021: cancer.
She said of the cancer: ‘You can have as much wealth as you want, but you leave this world as soon as you enter and life is about people. You can be as neat and decent as you want, but when you’re in Velindre, it’s all left at the door. It’s humbling.’
Davey says she is also a pioneer of working from home and has been for 40 years.
Because of her health issues, she says she often changes her day’s routine based on how her body is feeling.
Now she advises working women to try the same, but she said they should not give in the office yet as it provides good networking opportunities.
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