‘I built a multi-million-pound company from my converted bedroom’

When Mandy St John Davey received her MBE in the new year’s honours list she had thought it was another tax bill. The property tycoon and self-made multi-millionaire who grew up in a terraced house in Aberdare with seven others, where she had to sleep in the same room as her widowed mother until she was 17, still can’t believe it now.

She’s experienced more in her 63 years than most – including a never-ending battle with chronic fatigue syndrome which changed her life and rendered her nearly bedbound. Her honour, which she dedicates to her mum Barbara, or “Babs”, a former hairdresser and “local celebrity” in Aberdare, came a short while after she’d rung the bell at Velindre marking the end of her two-year battle with cancer.

“I’ve been very careful about not going too fast,” Mandy says from her four-bed house a stone’s throw from where she grew up in Aberdare. She could live in grand houses anywhere in the world, and has sold her breath-taking properties in Panorama in Canada and Paphos in Cyprus, but her community now means more to her than it ever has before.

“My cancer crept up on me. I felt fit, healthy, and had no symptoms. Luckily it got found during a routine check-up. I’d just done two renovations in lockdown in 2021 and I felt the happiest I’d ever been. I was at the top of my career. Then ‘bam’ – this diagnosis came out of nowhere. It’s been gruelling, the chemo and radiotherapy. My hairdresser is one of my closest friends and he didn’t want to but I begged him to bleach it all to hide the patches in the back. Just awful. But it’s also given me a completely different perspective. 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. A wonderful place. I try to think less about money now. Having friends and family around me in Aberdare, living an unhurried life – that’s what matters to me now. I’m not going to be investing so heavily anymore.”

Her home is as prim and proper as it gets with nothing out of place. A crystal ball hangs over the dining room connected to the lounge which is colour-coordinated down to the finest detail and where her MBE – for services to working women – will sit proudly framed on the wall following her investiture next month. In her small plush office space upstairs is a large monitor emblazoned with a picture of her casually posing, hands in pockets, beside the slogan: “Everything starts with an idea.” For more than 20 years she has been working from here, manifesting her large property empire which made her one of the wealthiest women in the country long before homeworking became all the rage.

“When I was 27 I woke up one morning and couldn’t move,” she remembers of the onset of her debilitating chronic fatigue condition – also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis or ME. “The GP at the time said she thought I needed to get married and I was probably lonely. I couldn’t drive, I couldn’t lift my head off the pillow, couldn’t brush my teeth. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason for it – it just happened overnight and took many years to diagnose. I had to have a consultant come to the house because I was so ill. It was very frightening. I left work for two years to try and get better.

“I did go back to work for the Welsh Government in Cathays Park rolling out their IT programme three days a week pre-millennium to get me back on my feet. The main project lead left and I took on the job and had 17 trainers working for me before I went back full-time. I then flitted between working for Eversheds and Geldards solicitors in Cardiff rolling out their IT programmes and leading training and development before the ME came back again. I knew at that point, when it happened for the second time, that this was something I was susceptible to and I’d have to deal with in my life. It was very difficult to come to terms with. I like to take on big challenges and yet I was really struggling. Mentally it became very hard. I thought: ‘I need to get myself to a position where I’m going to have to deal with this beside my life. I’m going to have to change my lifestyle and do something where I can work from home.’

“I was in this house and had a big mortgage. I was a young woman doing very well on a 55k a year salary. How do you replace that kind of money when you’ve fallen ill? The government didn’t recognise ME as an illness which would allow me to claim benefits. I’d never considered getting involved in property before but I realised my old house I’d just sold was being rented out. I’d realised I’d missed a trick but I had very little knowledge of 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.

“Then I’d begin going to developers at first phases and buying lines of new-builds straight off the first phase and selling them on when they reached 60% of the build. I’d got around 60 properties and it became full-on. On one arm it became a conveyor of buying and selling properties in a loop and on the other I’d have the properties I was renting out. Within five years, without any background in property, I had a massive portfolio that was worth millions and I’d managed to do it all from my bedroom.”

She is refreshingly honest about what her days entail. Sometimes she doesn’t start work until midday. “I can honestly say there isn’t a day where I’m not in some sort of pain [due to chronic fatigue]. It’s beyond debilitating so I have to listen to my body,” she says. “Cancer has necessitated that. Sometimes I don’t start until the afternoon, which is okay because I work for myself and my office is right there. Some days I feel I can work until 10 in the evening so that’s what I’ll do. I’m grateful I’ve created a life where I’ve been picking and choosing for 20 years.

“Sometimes I was overlooked because I didn’t have a classy office. Especially in the early days. People didn’t network with me because they didn’t think I was in their league. I’m talking big companies at the time. I was under the radar doing my own thing for many years. And yet they’ve fallen by the wayside. I think things have changed now thankfully.”

In her role as chair of Women in Property and as a mentor through the Prince’s Trust she is glad to see more young people getting the chance to strike a balance in their lives. “I’m so pleased more people are seeing the value of homeworking now,” she says. “Sometimes our days can be so much more impactful when they’re not 100mph in an office or stuck in traffic. It’s not for everyone and I often tell young women to try and get out there networking and learning in the office as much as they can, bouncing things off colleagues. I speak to lots of women who felt very isolated during Covid when they had no choice but to work from home. Mentally it’s tough and some of them found when they returned to the office their confidence had taken a knock. It’s so important to still stay connected and get that balance and it’s certainly possible. I’m in networks with multi-million-pound companies with huge grand offices and I’m running my own multi-million-pound company from my little office at home. It’s always suited me to have that. It’s helped me find that balance.”

Such was her success in property that in less than 10 years she’d acquired enough wealth to retire, which she did at 40 with her health in mind. “I sat on those white sandy beaches in luxury. I got bored really quickly. I realised I didn’t want that – not all the time anyway. I still had a drive within me that’s probably grown even more in the following 20 years – maybe because there’s that fear in the back of my mind that I don’t want to be where I was when I was growing up.”

When she was four years old her father died in a road collision leaving her mum – then just 22 – with two children and a home she couldn’t afford. They moved in with Mandy’s grandmother and grandfather, a coal miner in Aberdare, in a terraced property which also housed Mandy’s great-grandmother and uncle. Seven people shared four bedrooms and an outside toilet. “It was a tough childhood in some ways and yet it was also extremely loving,” she recalls. “My father died when I was four and I don’t remember a lot of him but I remember how hard it was for mum. She’s a tremendously strong woman. Mum and I were more like sisters and were for years. Perhaps it was because we slept in the same room. 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. My grandfather would take us everywhere – from school to trips out. He was always there. When mum left to live with her now-husband I decided to stay and live with my grandmother and grandfather until I was 19. I’d actually bought my first house for £8,000 with the help of some inheritance money that was left to me after dad’s death but I never lived there and sold it within months. I loved being with my grandmother and grandfather. My grandfather died just before my 18th birthday at just 57. That was very hard. You could say I come from strong stock – especially the women. All of them lost the men in their lives and they pulled themselves up and ploughed on.

“Come to think of it we were definitely the poorest family in the street. But I’ve no hang-ups about it. I’d never change it. I have a vivid recollection of going to my friend’s house down the road and being in complete awe because they had a playroom kitted out with toys and dolls. We didn’t have room to swing a cat. But back then it did feel like most of us were the same. The world didn’t feel as divided as it is today.”

She doesn’t want to feel divided from her tenants. Embedded in Aberdare, she wants to be close to her roots every day, and she thinks of herself as a community landlord. “I rent to people estate agents and other private landlords wouldn’t,” she says. “Lots of people in my properties don’t tick a box and would be rejected by most private landlords now. But I differ from most private landlords because I live and work in my community where my tenants are and I feel connected to my tenants in many ways. Many are single parents. Some of them have had to give up work due to health or the health of their children. Many of them have been with me for years and can’t afford to buy now with the world the way it is. I do feel I have a duty to them.”

Now, she says, it’s harder than ever to be a landlord. Standards of housing have risen with stricter and more costly legislation as well as prices of properties, interest rates, construction, and materials. “I try very hard to keep my rental charges as low as possible because I know what my tenants can afford. One of the tenants has been with me for 10 years and I’ve recently had to put their rent up by £50. It was very hard. But in reality it should have gone up a lot more. I have tried to fix all of my mortgages quickly in my last five-year plan which I was fortunately able to do. But landlords who are finding they can’t fix their mortgages are being forced to put the rent up. Many landlords are selling up as a result and we’re seeing very sad situations where many tenants are losing properties and ending up in temporary housing.

“I’m renting out two-bedroom properties at the moment for £450 a month when really that figure should be £650 at the least with that backdrop but I feel that’s very hard to do when I know it will lead to that tenant leaving the property. How do you tell a tenant you like a lot that you’re putting their rent up by £200 a month? I can’t. In the current climate landlords who are renting out properties are generally making very little. It’s a difficult situation on all sides.”

The scrapping of two-month no fault eviction notices through section 21 in Wales at the end of 2022 has “put landlords on the back foot”, she says. It coincided with a wave of landlords quickly evicting tenants across the country and cashing in while they could. Similar stories are now emerging across the border after UK Government housing secretary Michael Gove vowed to end no-fault evictions in England before the next general election.

“In nearly 30 years of letting properties I’ve evicted two people and that was an absolute last resort,” she says. “We’re not all bad landlords and I’d say 90 to 95% of the landlords I meet are very nice and thorough people who want the best for their tenants.

“The scrapping of two-month eviction notices puts landlords off buying because they know if they have a very bad tenant now there is a strong likelihood you’ve got to put up with that tenant for a while and you could lose a lot of money as a result. It’s lengthy and it’s costly to contest it in court with an eviction for unpaid rent, for example, through a section eight order. So you’d often find landlords would just go for a no-fault eviction. But now you’re waiting for six months to be able to get that tenant out of the property and that’s a lot of money potentially lost. It puts the landlord firmly on the back foot now. I’m glad I’m at the back end of it. It was a different world when I started investing.”

While she’s still got skin in the game much of her time is now focused on developing future female entrepreneurs. But her MBE, which she received especially for her voluntary efforts with Women in Property, the Prince’s Trust and the Welsh Government, was unexpected. “My postie handed me the envelope at the door and I thought it was a tax bill because it had ‘His Majesty’s Service’ written on it. When I opened it I was in disbelief. Very tearful to be honest. You’re sworn to secrecy but I did take it around to mum’s to show her because I feel it’s hers as well as mine. I pranked her. I told her it was for her and I’d accidentally opened it. She’s very partially-sighted and had all her kit out reading it. Once she realised she started to cry too. It’s been a complete joy.

“I’d never had the opportunity to go to university but when I got a chance to get a degree from the University of South Wales through WAVE (Women Adding Value to the Economy) when I was 50 I wanted to use it to give something back to women in industry. I managed to get a distinction in mentoring in entrepreneurial practice and the first thing I did with it was go to the Prince’s Trust. I’ve loved my position as a role model for the government too where I’ve been able to go into schools and colleges. I was doing that right up until my cancer diagnosis.

“Through Women in Property, where I’ve been national chair, we promote women to ensure they are visible within an industry still dominated by men. It is a platform for women to be able to share their profession and help each other. Like many other industries women often come up against barriers men don’t come up against as much and which result in them leaving the property profession. They might be struggling with the menopause, have elderly parents that need looking after, want to spend more time with their children, and then there’s the gender pay gap, and it can become difficult and unsustainable. We’re always looking for ways to retain and empower our women by giving them the tools they need to have a well-balanced and successful life. We now have 2,000 members and have reviewed and upgraded our national treasury function which was much needed and is now also embedded within our new online app. Things have come on so much when I think back to the late 90s. When I started I was walking into rooms full of men. It would absolutely have helped if I saw another woman in there. There were no female role models for me. We’ve made huge strides and I can’t wait to see what’s to come from these next brilliant young women.”