I grew up in family of seven in tiny house & shared room with mum… now I’ve made millions from my box room
MANDY St John Davey has made millions despite starting in a cramped home with seven others.
The property developer has battled adversity through her life including cancer, a chronic fatigue condition, and the death of her father when she was only four.
Now aged 63, she is one of the wealthiest women in the country and has received an MBE for services to working women.
Davey grew up in the Welsh town of Aberdare on the poorest house in her street – a tiny terraced home with an outside toilet.
She said she used to share a room with her mother, who she described as a tremendously strong woman.
She said: “That house felt like it was bursting at the seams at times. My grandmother was more like my mum and my grandfather like my dad. My mum worked multiple jobs trying to bring as much as she could in the house so I don’t remember her being there so much.”
But by 19 Davey and bought her first house with £8,000 in inheritance money.
She worked in other jobs in her 20s, including in IT.
But, Davey only had the revelation about becomcing a property developer when she sold her home after developing the fatigue condition.
Myalgic encephalomyelitis, or ME, left her unable to move and left her even too tired to take her head off the pillow or brush her teeth.
Davey didn’t work for two years as she sought to gain back her life, but after returning to work she developed the fatigue again.
She sold her home to get rid of her large mortgage – which is when she had the epiphany about buy-to-let mortgages.
“So I did a couple of courses and instead of selling this house I decided to take all of the equity out of it and reinvest it into as many properties as I could in and around Cardiff with dirty, smelly ones that needed some care. Most of those I’d rent out.”
Davey began to buy homes off the plans and then sell them at 60 per cent completion, within five years she had a portfolio of millions, she said.
Within 10 years she had built enough wealth to retire which she partially did, but she became bored and said she still had fuel in the tank to keep working.
So, she went back to work and continued building her property empire and be involved with Women in Property and a Mentor in the Prince’s Trust.
But, then in 2021, she was thrown another curve ball: cancer.
She said of the cancer: “You can have as much wealth as you like but you leave this world as you come in and life’s about people. You can be as prim and proper as you please but when you’re in Velindre that all gets left at the door. It humbles you.”
Davey says she has also pioneered working from home and has done so for 40 years.
Due to her health conditions she said she often changes the routine of her day to fit how her body is feeling.
Now, she advises working women to try and do the same, but she said don’t give on the office just yet as it does provide good networking opportunities.