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Lets say for example that I (the GM) build an Advanced race that comes out to only 12 pts. By my understanding, even though its an Advanced race, it rounds down to the 10 range of the basic races and thus no increase to the APL is needed. Does being an Advanced race make them unbalanced compared to say a dwarf which is 11 pts? Or are the Adv/Mon categories only there for GM-guided player race creation?
The Advanced and Monstrous traits are stronger than the Standard choices, and further outside the assumed abilities of PCs. Stuff like DR 5/Cold Iron, which may as well just be DR 5/- for most of the game (what monsters carry alternate material backup weapons?) and will be crazy powerful at low levels. Or Flight, which can trivialize challenges (though admittedly, it becomes quite common anyway around level 5 or so). Instead of reflecting these possibly disruptive qualities with higher costs, they stuck the abilities behind an Advanced/Monstrous classification. While using the normal rules can return wildly different results, adding in the choices from those lists will make them even more likely to be unbalanced than before.
So to answer your question, "Yes and yes." "Yes," it would probably round down and not increase APL (despite references to advanced and monstrous races, the chart only lists RP values). And "yes," giving away abilities from the Advanced and Monstrous lists can unbalance races. Note that some PC appropriate races do have abilities off the lists, but are balanced by other aspects of the race (or have advanced abilities that aren't particularly disruptive to begin with). I'd recommend looking at the different categories as more of a guideline and warning sign that things contained within might be a little out there and require more care and adjudication before use than as hard and fast requirement and prohibitions. Honestly, this is an attitude that should be taken when using any aspect of the race builder, in my opinion.
They're strong early on but eventually everyone can do what they can.
I (as humbly as possible) direct you to this thread. It discusses this issue from the Playtest. I haven't read the race building rules yet from the ARG to confirm how much has changed regarding Standard/Advanced/Monstrous races from the Playtest, but that thread might be helpful.
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As long as those players aren't then taking a build that synergizes really well with those abilities, you might not even notice it at all. A wizard with a slam attack probably isn't that much better than a normal wizard. A rogue with claws is only slightly slightly better than one with two shortswords, and most would not bat an eye at that.
Just be careful about making races that are obviously superior than every other race at a certain class. Be especially careful about giving lots of abilities that synergize together really well. You are building a race that exists in many niches, so it should have some diverse base traits.
Ultimately, remember that as a GM tool, this should be a worldbuilding thing first and a mechanical/optimization thing second. Build a creature that makes sense in the ecological niche you are setting it in then start tweaking it for points to make it playable.