Forty written accounts on Google, spanning 2022 to this spring, and not one of them below five stars — that is the unusual thing about the Guarino Group. It is a mother-and-daughter team: local press reported in December 2020 that Alex Guarino of Wakefield had joined her mother Susan, a longtime Barrett realtor, to form the group. More recent clients name Lyv Realty as the brokerage behind them [E565878, E565885].
The work they get hired for is unmistakable from the reviews: first-time buyers in a market that keeps beating them. A 2025 buyer who described herself as anxious and nit-picky said Alex knew which strategies and language actually move a seller, and that they beat out 36 competing offers on their first home. A January 2025 pair closing on their first house faced 15 offers, several higher than theirs, and credited Alex with ways to compete that did not mean putting up more cash. A 2023 buyer using a VA loan — the sort of financing sellers often shy from — said the team knew the ground well enough to make it a non-issue.
Sellers describe the marketing rather than the handshake. In a 2023 review a seller said the home was staged at no additional cost and marketed with social ads, drone photos, custom mailers and email, and that the staging drew compliments. A December 2025 condo seller called the communication clear and proactive through a slow condo market. Loyalty shows up too: one 2025 client was on their fourth transaction with Alex, city and suburbs both, and a 2022 client counted three moves in three and a half years.
Two things to weigh. The whole written record lives on one platform — 42 Google ratings and nothing corroborating from a directory, a registry credential or a second review site, so there is no independent check on it. And one five-star account is not from a client at all: it is written by a lender who works with Alex's buyers, which is a trade relationship rather than a customer's experience.
Worth saying plainly, since a flawless five-star set usually deserves suspicion: this one does not read manufactured. The accounts run long and short, name both Alex and Susan across four unbroken years, and land on identifiable transactions — a Southie condo, a Cambridge condo, an Andover purchase, a Wakefield home sale, rentals arranged from a thousand miles away.
If you are buying your first home north or west of Boston and expect to be outbid, this is the kind of team the reviews say to call. Ask which of the two will run your search day to day, and confirm both agents' current licences with the Massachusetts Board of Registration of Real Estate Brokers and Salespersons.