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Some homeowners are still reeling from the Great Recession and it may take 10 years to recover.

The percentage of homes underwater — where the home is worth less than the mortgage — has been dropping as the housing market has recovered, but more than 4 million U.S. homeowners owe the bank at least 20% more than their homes are worth, totaling $579 billion of so-called negative equity, according to real estate company Zillow. “Homeowners who remain underwater will likely be the toughest to free from negative equity,” says Zillow chief economist Stan Humphries.

The rate of underwater homeowners is much higher among the homes with the least value, according to Zillow, which uses data from credit bureau TransUnion. More than 25% of those who own the least valuable third of homes were upside down, compared with about 8% of the most valuable third of homes. In Atlanta, 46% of low-end homeowners were underwater, compared with 10% of high-end homeowners. In Baltimore, 32% of low-end homeowners were in negative equity, compared with 9% of those who own the highest-value homes.

The good news: There were 15 million homes in negative equity at the peak of the housing crisis. The national negative equity rate dropped to 15.4% of all homes with mortgages in the first quarter, down from rate 18.8% the same period last year. The rate of negative equity improved in all of the 35 largest housing markets in the first quarter of 2015, “a sign that the country is continuing to recover from the lax lending rules and subsequent housing market bust of the last decade,” the report says.

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Millions of Americans are so far underwater, it’s likely they may not re-gain equity for up to a decade or more at these rates,” Humphries says. Because negative equity is concentrated so heavily at the lower end of the market, it prevents potential first-time buyers from finding affordable homes for sale, he adds. “Owners of those homes can’t move up the chain because they’re stuck underwater in the entry-level home they bought years ago. The logjam at the bottom is having ripple effects.”

Many markets are suffering from limited inventory, tepid demand, elevated foreclosures “and a whole lot of frustration,” Humphries says, but overall house prices nationwide are climbing, helped in part by low inventory and low mortgage rates. U.S. house prices rose 2.7% on the month in April and 6.8% on the year, according to the latest report from mortgage-data firm CoreLogic. Prices in Dallas rose 10.3% in those 12 months, but Washington, D.C. saw a more modest 1.6% 12-month increase.

But many homeowners still struggle. Over half of Americans (52%) have had to make at least one major sacrifice in order to cover their rent or mortgage over the last three years, according to a recent report, “How Housing Matters Survey,” which was commissioned by the nonprofit John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. These include getting a second job, deferring retirement saving, cutting back on health care, running up credit card debt, or moving to a worse neighborhood.