Found an error?
Report now
Going through ups and downs together: TV emigrant couple Peggy Jerofke and Steff Jerkel.
RTL / 99pro media
Tripled rents, economic pressure and fears for the future: the "Goodbye Deutschland!" couple Peggy Jerofke and Steff Jerkel are faced with the question of whether they can still afford their life on Mallorca - and take a risky step.
"A must! More important than anything else in our lives right now," is what he had in mind, explained "Goodbye Deutschland!" emigrant Steff Jerkel (55) to the VOX team during the filming of the current "Viva Mallorca" episode. He had set his mind on buying and renovating an extremely dilapidated-looking empty hotel. And this despite the fact that he spoke on the same show about how the costs that he and his fiancée Peggy Jerofke (49) had to bear were exploding. Rents have tripled on the Spanish vacation island - a major problem for the famous expat couple.
As a restaurateur and gatronomer, they also provided accommodation for their seasonal employees - but where an apartment used to cost 500 euros a month in rent, it was now 1500. And that was even when there was no money coming in. As a rule, the rooms have to be rented for a whole year, which is usually only not possible for the summer months.
The bill looks bleak: "At least 20,000 euros in losses per year," Jerkel calculates: "Just from apartments. That can't be right!" Peggy was also at the end of her tether: "This is totally crazy, totally sick."
Steff's plan: to turn the 34 rooms of the old hotel into accommodation for seasonal workers. After all, it wasn't just Peggy and him who had problems with the rents. Nothing works on the island without vitamin B. After all, after 18 years on Mallorca, they have made many contacts. The problem of rising costs and the resulting uneasy mood on the island, even among the locals, remained.
Are Peggy and Steff inspecting a valuable property or a ruin?
RTL / 99pro media
Peggy, however, was skeptical about her boyfriend's plan to buy a hotel: Was the run-down building really a bargain or were they not tying themselves to a clog? She wondered why the property was empty despite its great location in Cala Ratjada: "I think there's a catch behind it."
In order to bring money into the coffers, she first tried to boost business in her Tiki Beach Bar with unusual activities - such as a bracelet-making workshop for women, where the so-called "Ur-Bachelor" Paul Jahnke (43), an old friend of the couple, played music. His celebrity status seemed to work: Although disappointingly few tickets had been sold in the run-up to the event, the workshop was met with keen interest from walk-in customers.
And Steff's plan also took shape. An interior tour of the derelict hotel gave him hope: "Better than I thought" was the condition, he concluded. Would the purchase secure his future retirement, which he was very worried about? First of all, he wanted to seek the advice of an expert. If the building surveyor gave his go-ahead, he would go for it. Whether the deal will go through will certainly be the subject of one of the next "Goodbye Germany" episodes.
