Advice for moving to San Antonio

[Pellaz]

So we're getting ready to move a bit south to San Antonio, Tx before too long, and trying to minimilize the hassle and unknown. As it stands, we're jumping into the unknown here. We've never lived in a place so large, and know next to nothing about the area. At the end of this month, we're planning on going down for a few days and finding an apartment (only going to be there nine months) and all that jazz.

Does anyone have any advice on what places to avoid, if any? We'll be looking for something as close to Fort Sam Houston as possible.

Final question seems rather silly, but I honestly don't know. Are there any services out there that you can purchase at a reasonable price to find an apartment for you? I see several of these types of services where the apartment owners pay for the service, and those just seem a bad idea.