property example

gistfile1.py

class Thing(models.model):
    something = models.CharField(null=True)
    # ...

    @property
    def something_display(self):
        if self.something is None:
            return 'something else'
        return self.something

#####

>>> thing = Thing()
>>> thing.something
None
>>> thing.something_display
'something else'
>>> thing.something = 'yay'
>>> thing.something
'yay'
>>> thing.something_display
'yay'