Looking for an apt in Dubai

We're looking for a place to live in Dubai, so if anyone has some tips on good agencies to use there, do let me know. I've sent some mails to some agents on the web, but have not any positive replies as yet. There are a lot of great agents I hear, so it seems that I'm not contacting the right ones so far. I think I need to find some expat boards to get the scoop on how to find a good agent and also someone to give us the details on finding a company to ship some of our stuff there. We're not going to take our furniture or electronics, since it would be easier to just buy everything there itself, but will need to ship some of our personal items.