Mvc razor dropdownlist html helper resets selected value

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C#

.NET

Razor

MVC4

This one has got me scratching my head as I'm still pretty new to MVC and Razor. I'm building a couple of Select Item lists dynamically that have one item pre-selected, no biggie. What is getting me is that after the list is passed into the Html helper function, the selected item is being de-selected and the list defaults to the first item. Stepping through the page load, the List<SelectListItem> has the correct values prior to entering the helper function. I'm NOT using the Entity Framework for database operations.

<td>
  @{
    List<SelectListItem> itemList = Functions.GetListForProperty(property);
  }
  <% Correct value is selected in the list %>
  @Html.DropDownList("PropertyList", itemList)
  <% Selected = false for the previously selected item, wtf? %>
</td>

Is there some setting I'm missing here. The view is built with the scaffolding but I have other views with dynamically generated drop down lists that don't behave this way.

What I have tried:

I've tried both flavors of the helper function, @Html.DropDownListFor(Model => model.property, IEnumerable<SelectListItem>) and @Html.DropDownList("Name", IEnumerable<SelectListItem>) and get the same results. I have even inlined the code that builds the list and still get the same thing.