Issue with Realtor/Broker

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So, similar to my car salesman thread, I'm dealing with a realtor who's acting fishy. I was wondering what you all thought about this.

We are looking to rent a house closer to my job that I'm starting in about a month. We found a great rental house, perfect location, 3 bd, etc. We were already dealing with a realtor before we found this house and we had her show us the house since she has always been very up front and professional with us.

She calls on Saturday when we're going to see the house and they (the people renting the house) tell her there are no applicants for the house yet. It had been on the market over 45 days. So we see the house, like it, and put in our application yesterday (Sunday). When we dropped it off, there were no other applications in the drop box.

So today (Monday) we get a call saying that we were approved for the rental, but instead of moving in in about 3 weeks as we wanted, they said they have 3 other applicants and we have to move in this Wednesday or they're giving it to someone else.

Do you think it's really possible that 3 other applications happened to show up between yesterday when we dropped off the apps and today when they called, or do you think they're just trying to strong arm us into starting the lease early?

I don't really want to play chicken with them since I really like the house, but we'd pretty much be paying over $800 more than originally thought if we had to pay starting Wednesday.

If its hard to find good houses and you
like this one, i would try and work it out.
If houses are easy to come by i would
say bye bye and move on to the next
house thats availabile. But this is just
what i would do, not a recepie for success
or anything.

Sometimes I wish I had a house made of candy like on Hansle and Gretel and no rain, nothing would damage it and if I wanted something new, I just wave my magic wand except I would be a nice witch, I wouldnt eat children.

It does seem fishy that it would be on the market for 45 days without a bite, then suddenly it would get 3 applications. Personally I would stick to the plan and tell them you are moving in on the date you put on your application, and screw it if they claim they're renting to someone else.

Another solution would be to comprimise, tell them you will move in on the date between next Wednesday and the date you put on your application. Or you could say, "I'll move in Wednesday, but then you have to drop my security deposit by $800, or have the carpets professionally cleaned by then, or shorten the lease to mandatory 6 months instead of 12 months..." where you would both get something out of the deal.

Yes, it is entirely possible that 4 applications were received in a single day, especially on a weekend. Perhaps three other parties were just sitting on their apps and dropped them off on the same day, who's to know?
But because it's a rental- an income property- it is in the owners' best interest to rent sooner rather than later. After all, a house sitting empty is costing them money.