"McMansion" used to come before "manufactured" in the home-building dictionary, but the industry and investors think buyers may be ready to change that order.

Home builders are responding with products that they hope will expunge "trailer" as a synonym for "manufactured" in the construction lexicon.

The Wall Street Journal reports that , "Many manufactured homes today are built to resemble traditional single-family homes. Hitches are gone. Kitchens include wood cabinets and granite countertops, not just laminate and plastic. Walls are made from drywall rather than fake wood paneling."

The paper cites as an example, UMH Properties, which states that it owns a portfolio of 41 manufactured home communities with about 9,000 home sites and over 500 acres for new sites.