They can guide you through legal, financial, and construction hurdles.

There are a few things you can do to increase your conversion rate such as filtering out recent purchases (look at hold periods greater than 5 years) and looking for properties where it looks like the owner is asleep at the wheal (unkept grounds, low occupancy, poor reviews etc..). 

The other will be sent to a scammer (David Owens of Owens Financial Group), who claimed to be legitimate, but was actually just pulling me along and had me wire funds for a loan that never even seemed to exist.I waited about a year to take action and I figured better now than never to act on this.

I recently came across someone on Instagram who was promoting his business/strategies for people to pursue to achieve financial freedom as quickly and best as possible.

I have also read "Rich Dad Poor Dad" and "The Book on Rental Property Investing", both are tremendous for wrapping your head around the possibilities to achieve financial freedom and how exceptional real estate is as one of those vessels.

I discovered my current mortgage is behind secondary to an increased in December; I am using automatic payments and didn't notice the partial payment notification.

I would ask for financials

Where with that same 600k you can leverage it acquiring several properties at the same time putting 20-25% down on each increasing your monthly cashflow and the amount of market appreciation you'll be able to capture. 

I have another reason to thank Bigger Pockets for my financial well being. 

Talk with a qualified attorney.I wish I had the money to do this, but unfortunately I'm not in any better position myself, although I have the equity, I don't have the income to support any further financial obligations, otherwise I'd just make the cc payments for her.