How do I add placeholder text from the model into a MVC view?

A little late, but if someone is still looking for it...

@Html.EditorFor(model => model.Email, 
new { htmlAttributes = new { @class = "form-control input-md",
@placeholder = "Whatever you want as a placeholder" } })

It's perfect and clean!

This solved my issue:

@Html.EditorFor(model => model.Email, new { htmlAttributes = 
new { @class = "form-control input-sm", 
placeholder = @Html.DisplayNameFor(m=>m.Email) } })

The code that did it was

placeholder = @Html.DisplayNameFor(m=>m.Email)