Specifyng a default message for Html.ValidationMessageFor in ASP.NET MVC4 - asp.net-mvc-4

Question

I want to display an asterisk (*) next to a text box in my form when initially displayed (GET)
Also I want to use the same view for GET/POST when errors are present) so For the GET request
I pass in an empty model such as
return View(new Person());
Later, when the form is submitted (POST), I use the data annotations, check the model state and
display the errors if any
Html.ValidationMessageFor(v => v.FirstName)
For GET request, the model state is valid and no messages, so no asterisk gets displayed.
I am trying to workaround this by checking the request type and just print asterisk.
#(HttpContext.Current.Request.HttpMethod == "GET"? "*" : Html.ValidationMessageFor(v=> v.FirstName).ToString())
The problem is that Html.ValidationMessageFor(v=> v.FirstName).ToString() is already encoded
and I want to get the raw html from Html.ValidationMessageFor(v=> v.FirstName)
Or may be there is a better way here.
1. How do you display default helpful messages (next to form fields) - such as "Please enter IP address in the nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn format) for GET requests and then display the errors if any for the post?
2. What is the best way from a razor perspective to check an if condition and write a string or the MvcHtmlString

Answer 1

Further to my last comment, here is how I would create that helper to be used:
public static class HtmlValidationExtensions
{
public static MvcHtmlString ValidationMessageForCustom<TModel, TProperty>(this HtmlHelper<TModel> helper, Expression<Func<TModel, TProperty>> expression, string customString)
{
var returnedString = HttpContext.Current.Request.HttpMethod == "GET" ? customString : helper.ValidationMessageFor(expression).ToString();
return MvcHtmlString.Create(returnedString);
}
}
And it would be used like this #Html.ValidationMessageForCustom(v=> v.FirstName, "Please enter IP address in the nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn format")