Choosing a tenant

Hi all

Looking for some advice as first time landlords and what your minimum requirements are regarding finding reliable tenants. We recently purchased a 3BD townhouse in the Eastern suburbs. Our agent went quite high on the first listing which we are a bit uncomfortable about as I don't want to gouge people. We asked him today to relist it at a price $70 per week lower than they had it (I'd had only been listed 5 days). He wrote back that they have an application from a young family who apparently own their own home in the far western suburbs in a relatively low socio economic part of town. They apparently earn a good salary and want to move into a part of the city with a better and safer school zone for their 2 kids and want to pay the higher original high quoted rent. Trouble is it is the only application to pick from and they have not rented before so have no references. Agent is pushing us to accept their application but we're hesitant. I feel like I would rather accept a lower rent and have some choice. Interested in other opinions though as we are first time landlords and perhaps we are being over cautious in worrying about the lack of choice and references.

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UPDATE: Thanks for the collective responses, really appreciative. First time landlords and we hope to eventually move into the property so we are probably overly emotional about it as some pointed out. We have accepted the application and assuming they are good tenants we'll freeze the rent at the current price for 2 - 3 years as they are paying the upper end of the market. Cheers again